The Media Institute for Southern Africa has called on the
managing editor of Swaziland’s only independent newspaper group to resign
because he is too close to King Mswati III.
MISA, the foremost media freedom group in the region,
said Martin Dlamini’s position was ‘untenable’.
In a scathing attack on the Times of Swaziland, one of only two newspaper groups in the
kingdom, MISA Swaziland chapter said Dlamini could not discharge, ‘his unbiased
editorial duty when he would appear to be beholden to the authorities’.
MISA made the call in its annual report on media freedom in Swaziland
called So This is Democracy? just
published.
In an unprecedented attack on a newspaper manager, MISA
said Martin Dlamini had been a former managing editor at the Times, but he then went to work at the
Swazi Prime Minister’s Office, where he served as Head of Secretariat for the
SMART Partnership Office.
MISA reported the Times
of Swaziland recalled Dlamini last year to resume his position of managing editor
after a vacancy became available.
The Times of
Swaziland group consists of the Swazi
News, Times Sunday and the Times,
which s published Monday to Friday.
MISA reported, ‘The recall of Times of Swaziland managing editor, Martin Dlamini, from
government, has raised eyebrows within the discerning civil society and media
fraternity.
‘As someone now allegedly beholden to higher authorities,
there is fear that the newspaper’s editorial independence is at stake. This
fear has been exacerbated by his unprecedented coverage of King Mswati III’s
trip to the United Nations in New York, later in the United Arab Emirates in
October 2012, where he not only reported for his own publication, but also for
the competing Swazi Observer!
‘Dlamini undertook this trip as part of the king’s
delegation. The mere fact that the Times
of Swaziland managing editor, a leading private publication, is found
writing stories for the Swazi Observer,
a royalist publication, is cause for serious reflection.
‘His position is untenable. How can he discharge his
unbiased editorial duty when he would appear to be beholden to the
authorities?’
MISA called the Observer,
a ‘pure propaganda machine for the royal family’.
The Swazi Observer
is in effect owned by King Mswati, who rules Swaziland as sub-Saharan Africa’s
last absolute monarch.
See also
‘POLICE SPIES INFILTRATE MEDIA’
REPORT CENSORED TO PROTECT KING
THE STATE OF SWAZI JOURNALISM 2013
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