|
Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (Macra) Director General Evans Namanja said on Monday community radios like Malawi Institute of Journalism (MIJ), Radio Maria, Radio Islam, Transworld and Calvary should stop airing news because the Communications Act does not allow them to do that.
Namanja said in an interview after opening an international conference on promoting community radios that these radios should have their licences changed and start operating as private commercial radios.
He said news is supposed to be addressed to the public and not to one particular community.
Namanja also said most of the community radios cover a wider radius than they are supposed to cover.
“Maybe there have misinterpretations as to what a community radio is. Let’s take Blantyre as an example. Does the city need a community radio when it is so cosmopolitan? What community needs does a community radio serve?” queried Namanja.
He said news is a public issue and that by broadcasting it, the community radios were hijacking the role that public broadcasters like Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) and Television Malawi (TVM) are supposed to play.
“What the community radios are doing is wrong,” said Namanja.
But a facilitator of the workshop Professor Soule Issiaka, who is the manager of Radio Netherlands Bureau in Africa, said any radio that cannot broadcast news is no radio at all.
“In my 35 years in radio, I have never come across a radio that is stopped from airing news. News is what concerns people and the role of every community is to air news that concern the community they serve,” said Issiaka.
He said Macra, as a regulatory body, should concentrate more on training people who work for community radios to turn them into better professionals so that they work more professionally.
“Regulatory bodies are using unprofessionalism in radios to justify their existence. It’s therefore their task to bring about capacity building and professionalism so that they don’t worry about stopping something community radios are doing,” said Issiaka.
|
