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.
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Govt departments and statutory organizations will be forced to buy the “newspaper “. I can also see some nwenye thief being told to buy the first copy at 5 million price.
An embarrassing admission that even propaganda of the mighty DPP at mother of all radios is failing to effectively cheat Malawians. Ndibwino DPP yayamba kuvomeledza kuti ikuluza. It’s good to swallow pride and concede defeat. Positive hope for a bloodless electoral outcome in May..
thats it….a govt run by nkhalamba who makes it worse by choosing felow nkhalambas in higher position……che mussa feel for those poor pple who have no food in their plate all their money owned is heavily cut thru taxes…..make policies to help the poor malawian
Wasting time, who can sit down and read dpp news, madzi akatayika saoleka
Viewership imasalira pa MBC TV pamene amaonera Mwachande lero mwaikapo Saturay 7.30 pm programme yochemerera DPP anthu asiya kuonera ndiye mukuti muonjezere kuononga ndalama zathu ndi nyansi pa newspaper? Eeeesh toilet paper ikhalatu imeneyo.
I never thought Mussa is a narrow thinker. If MBC Radio has failed what makes Mussa believe that most people will read the crap on paper? With such leadership how can a country develop?
So the government is set to counter misinformation with a state-sponsored misinformation? Stupid minister. Chitsiru. No woner we are a very pooor country bcoz we hav zitsiru for ministers
You mean a DPP Campaign newspaper paid for by taxpayers, like MBC.
This has to be stopped
but how do we stop this when everybody just looks puzzled at this government’s impunity in everything they are doing. Rights organizations can not fight this in court. there is absolutely no law that mandates the ministry of information to print newspapers at the expense of our taxes. To put this is illegal. This expenditure is unauthorised
Will this newspaper accommodate the views and opinions of opposition parties? I doubt. Loss of valuable resources.