Newly elected chairperson of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa)-Malawi Chapter- Thom khanje has said his royalty will always be with the media and ordinary Malawian people.
Writing in his column, The Thumb, Khanje also promised to with the government “only if you respect” the freedom of the press and expression.
He says journalists also expect President Arthur Peter Mutharika to live up to his promise to sign the Declaration of the Table Mountain, which seeks to get commitment from African governments that they will initiate efforts to repeal insult laws in the Penal Code and other subsidiary laws.
“The Malawi media and indeed many Malawians expect the government to permanently reform the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation through a repeal of the Communications Act that will make MBC a public broadcaster and not a state broadcaster as it is presently.
“We MBC to be answerable to Parliament and not the executive arm of government,” said Khanje.
He further urged government to stop what he described as continued arrests, intimidation and harassment of journalists through the Malawi Police and other security agencies and instead use bodies such as the Media Council of Malawi when they have complaints against a journalist.
“We do not expect the current government to ever revert to the system of using advertising by government institutions as a way punishing and settling scores with media institutions that are deemed critical to the administration as it happened in 2011 and 2012 when the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government banned advertising in Nation Publication Limited Newspapers and Joy Radio,” he says.
He also admitted that the campaign prior to Misa elections were “intense” and “even fiery to the point members exchanged bad words and fabricated negative stories against each other.
“My appeal to fellow journalists is that let us forget about what happened during the campaign and regroup as members of the united one family.
“If we allow divisions that appeared during the elections to continue, we will weaken ourselves and create a serious threat to media freedom and democracy. It is only in unity where we can find strength,” he says.
