The dilemma of Media Managers in Zambia

By Pelekelo Liswaniso

There is a cartoon in one of the newsrooms in Zambia of a journalist writing his story on a typewriter and around his neck is a rope about to be pulled by someone he cannot see. The caption below reads: Be responsible and know what you are writing!
This is a clear warning to most journalists particularly Editors and Media managers, especially those working for state-owned media, that as much as there is press freedom enshrined in the Constitution, they have to be careful and know their limits.
This, obviously, results in many of them applying what has become to be infamously known as self-censorship. As reporters gather and write the news, the media manager is the last gate-keeper and those employed by the state carefully scrutinize the news content to ensure that the tone, language and the message is palatable for the powers that be and at best does not annoy or injure the appointing authority.
“If you have to survive in Africa, you must know what your masters want or else you will be shown the door faster than you came in,” one editor, who still works for one of the State-owned newspapers once told me, adding: “You have to play it safe to remain in a job.”
One of the difficulties greatest difficulties media managers have to face is to find a common ground between being professional and reporting and publishing the truth and realizing that that one has a family to take care of and that there is someone, somewhere, watching each step you make. One must be aware the neck can easily hang that one if one crosses paths with the appointing authority!
Despite media organizations belonging to the state, there is no re-capitalization and operations depend on obsolete and outdated machinery that were installed a long time ago, during the days of the typewriter in the newsroom. Due to wear and tear and lack of spares, the printing and processing machinery often break down and compromise quality in newspaper production. However, each day, there is a postmortem on the quality of the newspaper.
But these are copies with ink smudges, poor images of photographs and unattractive news items. The irony is that managements of state-owned media organizations are told by their boards of directors that they should run the media as business concerns and make profit to sustain operations, sell the news and find resources to buy new equipment and operate efficiently.
One would have expected some injection of funds from the government but save for the initial investment of the buildings the newspapers are situated with old Goss machines for printing and obsolete cameras and plate makers, there has not been any new investment to improve operations. There is little income that trickles in from advertising and circulation. Most of the income is swallowed up in salaries and maintenance costs.
As a result operations in general are of a sub-standard nature to say the least, and compounded by a lack of vision to emulate what others in the industry were doing, one wonders how the media continues to operate. The computers in use in newsrooms operate on cheap pirated software and often break down too because of viruses affecting daily production work. In addition, the Internet is a preserve of the top management officials and reporters’ research is never in-depth. This demoralizes managers who want quality.
The online publications are also not well designed while the manner in which the pages are updated is slow, rigorous and worse still, they do not have an archive system, making them not user-friendly.
Furthermore, a Media Manager has to deal with the perennial problems of lack of transport for editorial and distributions purposes, whereby reporters including editors have to cram for a pool car during assignments, delaying the process of timely newsgathering. Once a newspaper is produced, distribution is done with one van at one of the state owned papers! And yet a newspaper is supposed to be national. Only a few people along the line of rail read newspapers.
Majority of the people have no access to newspapers because the courier service is inadequate. Procurement of production materials such as newsprint, plates, films and so on, which are imported is a daily nightmare for mea managers because they have to ensure timely delivery of these items
At the same time, they have to raise enough funding to pay for the consignments. There are cases where some management have been threatened with court action bordering on closure of newspaper plants because of debts on newsprint to suppliers. There is still a huge debt amounting to over $400,000 owed by one of the leading state-owned newspapers, which is still being serviced for consumption of newsprint that was supplied more than ten years ago.
The managers have to figure out the best option to keep production going and at the same time ensure that suppliers are satisfied and do not rush to court for a solution. Because of the insufficient resources, a media manager is also not very popular with unionists who every year demand salary increments and improved conditions of service.
Almost every year there are work stoppages in media houses due to worker’s demands, posing a serious challenge on how resources should be shared from the limited income generated from advertising sales. There is also concern on the caliber of supporting staff, especially in marketing and advertising that do not seem to be proactive and creative in generating sales and this has resulted in incomes remaining almost static.
Editorially, most news stories are not usually appealing to the readers because of the monotony of being propaganda pieces by those in power. The newspapers therefore, do not sell as much as they would if they were written with a flare to reach out to most audiences. In most cases, the media managers are in peripheral management and are hardly consulted in decision-making such as editorial policy and recruitment. Decisions are made at executive level and yet the day-to-day queries are left to the editors. The manager further has to deal with the problem of lack of incentives. At the Zambia Daily Mail for example, employees in middle management are not entitled to overtime while unionized employees get more in terms of salary than some editors! Editors have difficulties in acquiring decent housing and live in compounds together with their junior and general workers. One would have thought Zambia’s transition to multi-party politics in 1991 would lead to significant changes in state media but nothing much has changed. There was brief period just before and soon after 1991 when it appeared that the media would become an independent influence in a democratic environment. But any movement in that direction has been thwarted by the continued state control of the country’s major news establishments. On the other hand, the private media is weak due to a hostile political and legal environment and severe economic conditions. Most of them have sprang up and quickly closed down because of high operational costs exacerbated by the poor economy. So managers in the media have done little to effectively contribute to the democratic dispensation and at the same time make a profit for their firms.