Malawi govt newspaper to hit the streets in March, says Minister Mussa

Ministrer of Information and Communications Technology Henry Mussa has  warned that the decline of “credible” news providers with the advert of fake news spreading like bushfire on social media left the public “vulnerable to news which is untrustworthy”.

Mussa said  high-quality journalism was a force for good, disclosing that his ministry is set to introduce the printed press at national level.

Speaking during a familiarization tour to Regional Information Offices in the South, Mussa said it is high time government had a competitive newspaper so that Malawians should have access to reliable information on various public policies and programmes.

“It is sad that in present day, people in the country are not aware of various government projects and other developments government has done since it came into power like the construction of Ida Chilembwe Community Technical College in Chiradzulu.

“The newspaper is projected to be functional by March this year (2019). In fact, it was supposed to be functional way back but due to other challenges, it did not hit the streets. All the necessary preparatory work and implementations are almost half way done,” he said.

“The main aim for creating this paper is to have an informed citizenry,” Mussa added.

Mussa, therefore, advised District Information Officers to  provide good quality journalism  as the country is going towards general elections, saying it is not good to be writing false stories about other people or the government since that could not take Malawi anywhere.

Malawi has two daily private owned newspapers, The Nation and Daily Times.  The publications also own the weekend titles.