ABJ hails business journalism in Malawi
Association of Business Journalists (ABJ) a professional body for Business, economic and financial journalists has hailed the practitioners in Malawi for developing the sector to greater heights and also thanked owners of media houses for heavily investing in business news departments.
ABJ’s National Coordinator Thomas Chafunya was speaking in Lilongwe during the opening of one of the series of Capital Markets workshop the association organised in conjunction with the Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM).
“The business journalism in Malawi has come of age. We as ABJ are delighted that hefty investments have been made by the media houses by scaling up the human development capacity through training of business journalists, this is very commendable,” said Chafunya.
He cited the coming up of a mid week Business Times newspaper by Blantyre Newspapers Limited (Times Group) as one of the living testimonies that business journalism is flying high on the market.
“Every newspaper today has several pages on business news, every radio and television station has business news segments even the online media have their preferences on business news coverage. The quality of reporting has improved and analyses are more detailed,” he said.
Turning to the training, Chafunya said following some developments on the financial sector including passing of new legislations aimed at regulation the operations of the sector and protecting consumers, experts needed to breakdown the jargon through the training.
“Malawi business journalists must now act as conveyors of well researched financial news that will lead to informed decisions being made by Malawians when investing in the Capital Market’s through participation in company share trading or investing in bonds or collective investment schemes.
“Without informed decisions many Malawians can lose money through unforeseen risks and that has a huge bearing on the economy,” said Chafunya.
Eldin Mlelemba, RBM’s Director of Microfinance and Capital Markets urged the business journalists to work in unison through the ABJ saying getting affiliated as professional journalists has huge benefits including high level interactions with decision makers and specialised training.
“We are happy to work with the ABJ. Business journalists have a greater role to play in making the market perfect through the news that you disseminate that is why we accepted to be part of this workshop,” said Mlelemba.
The workshop roped in presentations from reputable financial market gurus like John Kamanga, Operations General Manager of the Malawi Stock Exchange (MSE), Armstrong Kamphoni, Chief Executive Officer of African Alliance Securities and a line of experts from the Reserve Bank of Malawi.
The training has targeted about 70 business journalists in Blantyre, Lilongwe and Mzuzu.
Follow and Subscribe Nyasa TV :
