The Wits Centre for Journalism and the Continuing Journalism Education’s (CJE) initiative worked closely to develop the first ever State of the Newsroom for Malawi (2021).
This inaugural issue focuses on corruption in the media in Malawi. The year 2020 was unprecedented and remarkable, not just for Malawi, but for the world. The covid-19 global pandemic spared no region; no country. The pandemic unfortunately also brought to Malawi opportunities for corruption in the procurement and delivery of healthcare services needed.
In this issue, while we offer an overview of the state of the media – including notes on salient changes in the media landscape, media indicators, a discussion on working conditions in the newsroom, and on sustainability – our focus is on corruption. With a third of the country’s budget lost to corruption each year, this is a critical issue for Malawi.
Our interest is both in how the media talks about corruption, and in the much more controversial issue of corruption in the newsroom itself.