On The Frontline

Can’t other PROs emulate Henry Chimbali?

Journalism can be evil, sometimes. With its philosophy of ‘bad news is good news’, it is quite easy—especially if you are a journalist working in a Malawi where mediocrity reigns supreme—to become a complete sadist.

It is possible—because we, journalists, have the power to publish and broadcast to more eyes and ears—to instil a failing spirit in our society, and, as a result, cultivate a nation that inhales polluted and failing oxygen into its lungs.

I am saying it is quite easy to become a lifetime pessimist who, every working day, strives so hard, in the spirit of journalism, to come up with a strong disturbing headline while positive ones lie in the gallows, deliberately unnoticed.

I am not ready to be such a heck of a journalist to my people, my society. My dream is to be an honest son of the land, a journalist who—even in the face K61 billions, government manufactured economic downturns and recycled political garbage—I will still tell a story of Henry Chimbali.

Chimbali, spokesperson for the Ministry of Health, has a tough and demanding job yet few notice it.

Chimbali’s, in the first place, is a critical ministry that deals directly with human life. Scoundrels, like those that steal hospital beds and drugs, are people without souls that need not be close to this ministry. Yet, such scoundrels are all over the ministry.

That is why being Chimbali—a person whose job is to create a positive impression of a troubled ministry through, among others, answering difficult questions from the public asked by ‘bad news seeking journalists’—is not an easy thing.

In a country where the Access to Information Bill continues to gather dust, it is possible for Chimbali to play Portia Kajanga, spokesperson for the Roads Authority (RA).

Kajanga, despite being a journalist, is a woman who, even just to get a progress response of a road project to help a journalist inform the public, will keep you waiting until nothing happens.

When you remind her, she will start blaming you for ‘your poor planning’, sometimes calling you ‘an incompetent journalist’ because you made an editorial mistake in your earlier publication.  After the litany, she will remain silent—no response!

All I am saying is, in a country where no minister of information is keen to push Parliament to debate and the Access to Information Bill into law, it is very easy for Chimbali to play the games we journalists experience when we want to get public information from, among others, Escom, Mera, Ministry of Education, water boards, University Council, Parliament and Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security.

But Chimbali gives us hope. He is a spokesperson who is not just available but will, most importantly, listen to you and, through promises that he hardly breaks, make your job feel worthy.

If you send him a questionnaire on any story generating public interest, he will give you a reasonable time frame so that he conducts research to give you credible data.

Not only that. He will give a time frame that augurs well with the demands of deadlines in journalism. And within that time frame, he will have responded, and if he fails, it is him, not you, who will call asking for an extension.

I am not saying Chimbali responds favourably to what we, ‘bad news seeking journalists’ demand from him in our questions. No. Rather, in journalism’s spirit of fairness and balance, you need to get a voice from everybody involved in the story. And Chimbali hardly disappoints—and I can repeat this until Christ comes!

I know, of course, this is my opinion. But ask other journalists out there. They will not tell you something different about Chimbali. Even the public, to be honest, can attest to this because most of the stories from the Ministry of Health which we, journalists, publish or broadcast are well balanced and fair.

In fact, the Ministry of Health, through its various interventions, is not just well covered but also mostly covered. That is why, even when we still have some bad eggs in the country, there is always some glimmer of hope.

Today, I chose to tell positive story—the hopeful story of Chimbali. It is my belief that other spokespersons would swallow their pride and learn something.

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3 Comments

  1. Wakulipila eti?
    Wasnt he the one amafuna kuzembaitsa nkhani ija a bwana No.2 ataba ma bed kuchipatala china kunkasiya nkukasiya ku chipatala chaku kaya.

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