The Zambia Daily Mail is a state-owned English-language daily broadsheet newspaper published in Lusaka, Zambia, wholly owned by the Government of the Republic of Zambia and incorporated under the Companies Act (Cap. 388) of the Laws of Zambia. Its history traces to February 23, 1960, when the first edition of the African Mail was published in Northern Rhodesia as an independent weekly pro-independence newspaper; it was renamed the Central African Mail in 1962. In 1965, the newly independent Zambian government acquired the paper from its private owners — majority shareholder David Astor among them — renaming it the Zambian Mail and subsequently expanding it into a daily publication renamed the Zambia Daily Mail in 1970, at which point it was instructed to become an “instrument in nation building.” The paper also publishes the Sunday Mail. It is one of two state-owned daily newspapers in Zambia, alongside the Times of Zambia, and both fall within the supervisory portfolio of the Ministry of Information and Media. In 2021, the Media Institute of Southern Africa called for the need to “reform government-owned publications such as the Daily Mail” so that they reflect the diverse views of all Zambians — reflecting longstanding concerns about the paper’s editorial independence.