Agony is being a newscaster at the state regulated and MMD controlled ZNBC and being subjected to read news that defy logic and statements or interviews that cannot stand the test of intellect.

I feel sad every time I listen to the news on our national broadcaster. When I look into the eyes of the newsreader, you look at their body language when they are reading the news, one senses fear, pain and regret in our supposed professionals, reading things that they know do not make sense and do not meet the minimum basic tenets of journalism.

If what we are seeing in the government media, the intimidation of the journalists, the stifling of news and blacking out of divergent views from our fellow tax-paying opposition and concerned Zambians is what Rupiah Banda and his goverment means by media regulation, then this country is finished. I can only, in my small voice, call upon all Zambians to stand up and defend the media for mother Zambia.
In fact, the government should have just been bold and brave enough to declare that it is literally only The Post that they wish to regulate, they should not hide behind generalising the word ‘media’. They should just say ‘statutory Post regulation’ as opposed to the vocabulary gymnastics they are using so that we can take them on. We all know that public media is already regulated and controlled by government under MMD and that the few other private media houses, print and electronic, who have dared to be professional are already under siege from these despots in government.

Finally, may I remind those in government, especially George Kunda, Ronnie Shikapwasha and Mike Mulongoti to please try to learn from the past mistakes of their colleagues who were in government before. It is dangerous to frame laws that are targeted at individuals or singular institutions. The same laws will come to haunt you when the time comes. I know of a very senior former leader who when he was in office, he vowed never to read The Post newspaper or have anything to do with it. Today, from the time he fell out of favour with the government, I wouldn't be wrong to state that it is the same Post he wanted silenced that has kept him politically alive and breathing.

For it is the same Post which has covered all his statements and comments without favour or conditions, and he really comes out with very long but logical statements and points on the state of the nation. The government-controlled media which were like his photo albums and diary now treat him like a leper or like he does not exist.

This is what awaits you gentlemen, but is this the way to run a nation? Think please and instead deregulate the state media and release them from the shackles of your primitive politics.

To our colleagues in the public media, we understand your predicament. You did not train to be journalists so that you can be turned into parrots. There always comes a time to fight for one's own. Things cannot continue like this; you need to come out of that cage and fly like an eagle. You cannot be cowards forever, forty-five years of independence should not just be a number. It must start to mean something in every profession in Zambia.