Zambia - Alert 24 December 2014 Public media publishing half- baked news- PS Information Permanent Secretary Dr Chanda Kasolo says once issues of technical specifications are addressed by the government, the establishment of provincial television stations will start. In an interview, Dr Kasolo said despite him not being a journalist by profession, he is able to distinguish between professional and unprofessional conduct in the public media, The Post newspaper of 21 December 2014 reports. “I have been very disappointed, most of the news being published, news being broadcast is half baked. I’m not a journalist by profession but I know what is right and what is wrong. I’m for fairnesss and truth at the ministry and I want to deliver,” he said. I encourage the managers that are running ZNBC, ZANIS, Daily Mail and Times of Zambia to run these institutions in their [own] way, I demand of them to be fair to all parties, whether within the same political party or more.” Dr Kasolo also called on media organisations to retrain their editorial staff to enhance performance. He said it was not in his interest to bulldoze the ZNBC news agenda. “I was alleged to have gone and instructed ZNBC not to write about Hon [Edgar] Lungu, I was also alleged to have gone there to them not to broadcast any news about the opposition parties; figment of their imagination!” Dr Kasolo exclaimed. He said contrary to some perception that favoured a particular political grouping, he had a supervisory role to render to heads of public media organisations. And Dr Kasolo said the dream of building television stations in all the 10 provincial capitals still remains a matter of concern and importance to the government. “There are a few things to settle, these television stations, are they going to be entirely run by the government or they will be run by the private sector on behalf of the government? These are the issues to be addressed. There are also technical specifications; what kind of buildings, computers, where the electricity will be coming from… all these are salient points to consider [because] each provincial town is different from another,” he explained. Asked about the progress made in implementing the digital terrestrial television migration policy, Dr Kasolo said the first phase was almost complete. He expressed optimism that by the due date, June 17, 2015, all would switch to digital transmission. “By the due date, we would put everything in place, I don’t believe in failure. As soon as funding is availed by the treasury, everything else will be done and we would be good to go,”, said Dr Kasolo.
Posted on: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 08:39:13 +0000
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