MUVI TV has always courted controversy with their uncensored choice of what to show on the station in what must be their interpretation of ‘calling a spade a spade.’ From the dead bodies we have become accustomed to now to private parts.
In the last week alone, the station has found itself at the centre of a typical example of journalism text book conflict of interest. There comes a time in my noble profession when we gauge whether or not to publish something on the scale of public interest and ethics.
Lest I lose you in theoretic chatter, I am referring to the story of the Chongwe man whose manhood was dismembered by his wife for allegedly denying her conjugal rights. I am also not too sure if the word castration was used appropriately in the Muvi TV report.
Running the story on television, as lead story at that was a good thing by Muvi TV but showing the unkempt groin of Victor Mulaula detailing where his manhood once hung before his wife severed it with a kitchen knife is pushing a winning game too far.
Another journalistic commandment ‘publish and be damned’ Muvi TV might want to lean on as an excuse, but that too is outweighed by the humanitarian side of things considering the amount of stick the gentlemen will now have to live with.
Are his private parts still private? Chances are that he might have consented to have his maimed private parts shown on television with a view of showing the world the extent of his anguish but the station should have used better judgment not to fall for his stunt.
As if showing of his former manhood was not enough, Muvi TV followed it up with University Teaching Hospital urologist Dr Francis Manda drilling the last nail in Victor’s misery when by declaring that the injury has permanently abbreviated the man’s sex career.
Maybe that is the part he will not worry too much about since he met his waterloo while denying to fulfill conjugal obligations to his wife. That is a question Muvi TV should have asked in that bedside interviewed if he knows that he now has a medically-supported reason to deny his wife sex.
I initially declared interest in discussing this matter seeing that the victim is from Chongwe which is my hometown and that of avid contributor to this column Mr Osward Chipepo but the breach of ethics in the end outweighed the consideration of my roots.
This incident came a day after Muvi TV also ran a story of the Roma Girls Secondary School headmistress Sister Emma Chakupaleza who was beaten up by the school tenant Daxon Sichilongo whose house she locked for non-payment of rentals amounting to K1,500.
This matter is before the courts of law thus I will make restricted comments for fear of attracting a contempt of court charge. Suffice to say Mr Sichilongo unleashed his beating on camera and was only restrained by a Muvi TV crew member.
I picked a reaction of a fellow journalist Matongo Kanenga Musiba Maumbi who drew comparisons between this case and the 1993 Kelvin Carter novelty incident where a photo-journalist took a picture of a vulture waiting for a malnourished girl to die so it could eat her instead of helping out.
Matongo’s argument is that in the clip Barbara Mwape Kumwenda provides narration and picture from Mr Sicholongo’s house where he found it locked all the way to the administration where the two started arguing before the beating ensued.
Mwape goes on to describe it as the worst kind of Gender Based Violence she has ever witnessed.
Unfortunately, the clip does not show what role she played in trying to rescue the nun. Well, maybe that was part of the behind-the-scenes not for the viewers but Matongo thinks she aggravated the situation.
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In a week of controversy, the men and women of the collar were also in the news for the wrong reasons after a Holy Fire Ministries Bishop named Dominic Kanyika Nyondo was arrested for having sex with girls between 16 and 20 years of age from his church.
I liked the promptness, whether by coincidence or by design, with which ZNBC used Wednesday’s Open Line programme hosted by Paxina Hankanga to discuss the issue of clergymen and women using the pulpit to advance wrong and selfishmotives.
Featuring Bishop Scott Mwanza from the Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia EFZ) and Reverend Suzanne Matale from the Council of Churches in Zambia (CCZ) you could see the discomfort the two clergy had in defending what they called a few ‘bad eggs’ in the church.
The episode left me asking myself; What has really gone wrong with the church? Is it therefore true that wrong people are hiding in the church? Is there credence in the call for Government to regulate churches?
These are some of the questions Paxina also threw to the panelists that included a concerned citizen Mr Mweemba. I was happy that both Rev Matale and Bishop Mwanza did not gloss over the issue but admitted that something serious needs to be done.
Rev Matala particularly said a church organisation that has nothing to hide will have no problem even if a law is put in place to regulate churches. Bishop Mwanza also welcomed the arrest of the culprit and hoped it would deter others.
It is really disheartening that church leaders whom most people in society are more comfortable confiding in should be in the forefront taking advantage of them. Only recently two pastors in Chipata were arrested for sexually assaulting their members under the pretext of exorcising evil spirits from them.
These are same bogus pastors are going round stopping people from taking Anti-Retroviral drugs, Tuberclosis drugs or taking their children to the hospital in preference to prayer leading to a risk of some patients degenerating into multi drug resistant levels of their diseases.
If the country is already struggling to furnish health facilities with normal or regular drugs, curing multi drug resistant illnesses will be more expensive to both the country and the patients. The Bible clearly warns us not to use the name of God in vain.
The story on ZNBC of a Zambian retired soldier who was duped out of his K198, 000 pension by some unscrupulous Ugandan witchdoctors left me wondering if people will ever learn about such things.
How possible is it that a witchdoctor trading in a tattered tent behind Soweto market can multiply K198, 000? Shouldn’t he be thinking of getting himself a new tent? Kudos for the Lusaka City Council for removing penis enlargement posters from the city.
In Sports, after the hangover of the World Cup, the Commonwealth has come in so timely and I only hope the spectacular opening ceremony in Glasgow, Scotland will not be matched by a similar tumble by our athletes.
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