THE IMPACT OF SURVEILLANCE ON THE PRACTICE OF INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM IN LUSAKA DISTRICT, ZAMBIA.

This study explored the impact of surveillance by the state on the practice of investigative journalists working in Lusaka Province. Employing the Panopticon framework, the study examined the use of surveillance systems by authorities to control journalists in order to make them more submissive to state control.
This qualitative study involved a series of in-depth interviews with 12 investigative journalists who work for various private media institutions based in Lusaka province. Two sampling method were used to sample the respondents that is purposive when it came to identifying the centre which offers investigative journalism training in Zambia and snowball when identifying journalists who are actively involved in investigative journalism.
This study established that investigative journalists in Lusaka are fully aware of various forms of surveillance mechanism which are being used by the state such as phone tapping, trailing and the use of closed-circuit television (CCTV). The study further found out that the presence of these surveillance mechanism instils fear in investigative journalists such that they do not feel safe but they have adopted different means of opposing the surveillance so that they can continue doing their work. The respondents were of the view that the country needs to have laws which will protect them from surveillance if they are to continue offering tangible checks and balances to those in power.