Malawi’s leading private broadcaster Zodiak has been forced into a humiliating climbdown after wrongly reporting that President Peter Mutharika had “sneaked” out of the country — in a story that turned out to be completely false. Several other news outlets also ran with the sensational claim that Mutharika had already left Malawi — but, unlike Zodiak, have so far refused to own up to getting it wrong. In a statement issued to correct the record, Zodiak admitted its error in full: “In our evening radio newscast yesterday, we inadvertently informed our publics that State President Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika had ‘sneaked’ out of the country to an undisclosed destination. The broadcaster went further, retracting the story entirely and issuing a direct personal apology to the President. Zodiak insisted the embarrassing episode would not deter it from holding itself to account in future.