Malawi President Dr Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera has challenged Malawi media to help build the nation by telling the Malawian story.
Addressing the media at Kamuzu Palace during the world press freedom day the Malawi leader said it is good for the country to focus on rebuilding the country's national agenda.
"In telling the world Malawi's story of affliction, it is important to do so by emphasizing our agency as a nation. It is important to avoid portraying Malawi as a nation without means. We must not imagine that giving the world the impression that we have no capacity to do anything for ourselves in this crisis," he said.
The president urged the media to take an active role in telling inspiring stories of how Malawi has stood up to the giant monster of climate change and avoid portraying Malawi as a nation without any means.
The president said, it is important to do so by emphasizing our agency as a nation and that the media should refrain from giving out to the world an impression that as a country we have no capacity do to anything for ourselves during crisis because this will not be in our good interest as a nation.
The President also said we should not think there is no nation on earth that is not facing climate impacts and we would naive to think we are the only ones the rest should feel sorry for and that it is only the inspiring stories that we continue to defend ourselves bravery against this monster that is bigger and more ferocious than any other challenge we face.
On the press freedom in the country the President said as journalist they are under obligation to tell Malawi's story in any manner.
"I know that in the past some year some misguided law enforcement agents have tried to damage Malawi's international reputation as a place where the press is free to publish what it likes, and some of you have fallen for the lie that such misguided police abuses are meted out with orders from here, but I can assure you that I have never once issued orders to the police to arrest anyone, much less a journalist, because such an order would be a violation of the very constitution I swore an oarth to protect," The president said.
He further said he is very committed to the ideals of press freedom not expressed in words but with action such as operationalization of the Access to Information Act, the removal of primitive laws that criminalized insults against the President, an open door policy that brings the press into the inner sanctum of government and a posture of great displeasure against any public servant who presumes to abuse his office or misuse the President name to induce police officers to act on their behalf instead of acting in accordance with the law.
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World Press Freedom Day falls on 3rd May annually worldwide and since President Chakwera assumes the presidency four years ago he has been hosting members of the press in the country to celebrate these auspicious occasions.
Theme for this year's celebration in Malawi is "Guardians for Democracy: Advocating Media Independence for Credible Elections".
