Making the case for a Zambian FOIA

Not all journalists in Zambia believe the country needs a Freedom of Information Act. That was made clear today at the government-owned ZNBC television network, when my interviewer implicitly questioned whether a "developing democracy" such as Zambia really needs such a law or is ready for it. He wasn't playing devil's advocate.

I responded by subtly challenging his premise, saying that Zambia's recent election had proven that it was functioning pretty well as a democracy, and that passage of a FOIA would be a logical next step in its development. I tried to debunk the common notion that having such a law is only of interest to journalists; I said I have told government officials here (and seen some eyes roll) that a democratic government doesn't really own records, it holds them in trust for the public, because it is the public that the government must serve, and the public needs records to hold the government fully accountable.

Passing a Zambian FOIA may be difficult. It would be the first in sub-Sarahan Africa, and perhaps the entire continent. It will probably need to go hand-in-hand with self-regulation of the news media, which I also discussed on ZNBC. I used the British Press Complaints Commission (described in an earlier item) as an example. I led off by saying I was the first of five UK faculty members who will be coming to Zambia over the next five months.

It will be interesting to see what airs on ZNBC's 7 p.m. news. At that hour I will lose my easy access to the Internet, so this item will be updated. I halfway expected them to hold the piece until the weekend, because of the George W. Bush visit today and tomorrow, but the interviewer said he expected it to run tonight. (His given name was Godfrey but he didn't have a card so his last name will also have to come later.)

My other interview today was a live one at Q FM, a station that mixes African pop music with news and occasional interviews. In that interview I made most of the same points but said more about my initial visit to Zambia, a year and a half ago, and how there no longer seems to be much debate about statutory vs. self regulation. I also mentioned the ethics code of the Society of Professional Journalists and repeated the URL, (http://www.spj.org/.

I was scheduled to meet with officials at the Home Ministry today, but like a meeting we have yet to have at another government ministry, this one had to be rescheduled a second time. It seems having a new government, by a party that has never governed and succeeded one that had power for 21 years, creates almost-daily crises in Parliament or elsewhere.

Another lively day at the Zambia Daily Mail

I spent most of the day at the Zambia Daily Mail, talking with editors, reporters and the staff photographer, who was among journalists assaulted today by relatives and other supporters of a former national official who was charged with receiving stolen property after cash worth more than $400,000 was found buried on his property. Mackson Wasamunu wasn't hurt, but a staffer from the Times of Zambia reportedly suffered a cut on the hand. Wasamunu said it wasn't the first time he had been assaulted by people trying to thwart news coverage.

It was another lively day at the Mail, which has become livelier newspaper since new management took over in October following the elections that gave the government to the longtime opposition party. The paper is one of two owned by the government, which nationalized them in 1972, but from time to time it has published articles critical of government officials. That has become more frequent since the September election, but editors told me the run-up to the election was difficult. One said, "In the last three years we experienced unprecdented interference. . . . There was massive interference with Page 1, Page 2, Page 3."

Since then, editors said, there has been no such interference. New President Michael Sata has said he wants to privatize the newspapers, but there are many questions about how that would be done. The Mail's own website acknowledges it lacks a sustainable business model.

The more independemt Mail has attracted more attention and readership. Antony Mukwita, the paper's deputy managing director and Page 1 editor, said circulation has increased to 15,000 from about 10,000. "People are seeing a balance now," he said. While American journalists wouldn't like the sensational aspects of the paper (which are not that much different from the other two papers), Mukwita said its philosophy is to be an honest and candid "mirror of the nation."

The candor is sometimes stark and sexual, with stories about infidelity and personal issues. One in today's print edition was focused on court testimony about the size of a husband's genitals. I asked Judith Konayuma, the Gender Desk editor, what she thought about such coverage. "The idea isto show our readers the extent of rottenness in our society," she said. Her desk produces stories on women's and family issues, and men's issues, too. Her example of that was coverage of the Men's Network, which involves men in the effort to stem domestic violence.

Konayuma and other editors said newspaper circulation in Zambia is low, despite its 80 percent literacy rate, because it is an oral culture where people prefer to learn by word of mouth and know which neighbor to ask if they want to read something in a newspaper. "The newspaper industry in Zambia is a tricky business," she said. I plan to learn more about it in my visits next week with the Times of Zambia and The Post. Tomorrow I meet with government officials and broadcast interviewers to discuss a proposed Freedom of Information Act and a self-regulation process for the Zambian news media.

A surprise and an early start

When I arrived in Zambia Tuesday afternoon (we're seven hours ahead of Eastern Time here), I was surprised to learn that former President George W. Bush will be here as part of a three-nation tour that begins in Tanzania and ends in Ethiopia, where he will speak at a world AIDS conference. So it looks like our paths will cross again on Saturday, when he holds a meet-and-greet at the new U.S. embassy, which is a very nice place with lots of nice people but for my money is too much of a fortress, as most of our new embassies have been in recent years.

Bush will be here because "Zambia is a flagship in learning how to diagnose and treat these cancers" of the cervix and breast, U.S. Ambassador Mark Storella said at a press briefing this morning. It also has a high prevalence of HIV and AIDS, which is another reason for Bush's visit, and mine. He started the President's Emergency Program for AIDS Relief, which Storella said is keeping 400,000 Zambians with HIV alive; and I am here as an extension of the University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications' State Department-sponsored program to help Zambia and Botswana journalists cover HIV and AIDS, subjects that journalists get tired of reporting about and that readers, viewers and listeners get tired of reading and hearing about.

I attended this morning's briefing, was introduced, and gave interviews to reporters about the issues that brought me here: freedom of information and news-media self-regulation. The government ousted in the September election had dragged its feet on a freedom-of-information act and wanted statutory regulation of journalists, with licensing and monetary penalties. The new government says it will move on an FOIA, and there seems to be a consensus that the news media need some sort of self-regulation, probably like the Press Complaints Commission, the successor to the old British Press Council. The commission enforces the British Editors' Code of Practice, created along with the independent, self-sustaining commission after some members of Parliament threatened to pass a privacy and right-of-reply law.

This afternoon I had the first of two meetings at the Ministry of Justice then to the Ministry of Information to meet with Permanent Secretary Amos Malupenga, who before the election was the editor of The Post, the only privately owned daily newspaper in this largely rural country of 13 million people. As I told the reporters this morning, the election shuffled lots of cards, many folks are playing new roles, and that is probably a good time to forge consensus on the issues that brought me here. I will also spend a day at each of the three newspapers; the new government says it will sell up to 35 percent of each paper, but some people are wondering who would want to be a minority stockholder in a government-owned paper. To its credit, the Zambia Daily Mail has shown flashes of independence since the election; I will spend the day there tomorrow.

Welcome aboard

I am in Zambia until Thursday, Dec. 8 meeting with newspaper staffs and free-press advocates on a trip sponsored by the State Department and occasioned by the recent elections that ousted a rulimg party of 21 years and replaced it with one friendlier to journalists. But that also means that the editor of the only privately owned newspaper, once the paper in opposition, is now the minister of information. I meet with him this afternoon.

I won't have much opportunity to post for the next day or two but will do what I can.