Maravi

(HERALD) ‘Scrap sanctions to level media playing field’

‘Scrap sanctions to level media playing field’
Herald Reporter

THE illegal sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by Western countries led by Britain and the United States must be scrapped as they are negatively impacting on the media environment, participants to the just-ended All- Stakeholders’ Media Conference held in Kariba said.

Speaker after speaker detailed the debilitating effects the sanctions have had on media houses, training institutions and the welfare of journalists.

The sanctions, delegates said, were likely to impact on the envisaged opening up of the media as they had negatively impacted on infrastructure such as transmitters and printers among other things.

Delegates drew up a number of recommendations on improving the country’s media environment.

The Ministry of Media, Information and Publicity will consider the recommendations for possible tabling in Cabinet in preparation for the envisaged media reforms.

The recommendations were drawn from five thematic areas, namely media economics; media and nation building; media ethics, training and gender; public and private media; and media regulation access to information and privacy.

Mr Gervasio Kaliwo, Unesco regional advisor for Southern Africa, pledged his organisation’s support for a national audit of training programmes and institutions with a view to coming up with minimum acceptable requirements for media training.

This came amid concerns by a number of delegates that several colleges purporting to provide media training had sprouted, with some offering training for as little as three months.

In his closing remarks to the highly subscribed conference held under the theme ‘‘Towards an open, tolerant and responsible media environment’’, Deputy Minister of Media, Information and Publicity, Jameson Timba, reminded delegates that the conference was about gauging the views of stakeholders in preparation for the envisaged media reforms.

‘‘What has come out of this workshop are recommendations. There is a difference between recommendations and resolutions . . . as a ministry we will retire to our base and consider this report (from the conference).’’

He said statutory bodies like the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe and the Zimbabwe Media Commission, set to take over from the Media and Information Commission, would be reconstituted using the

existing laws.

Earlier on, in his opening address to the conference, Media, Information and Publicity Minister, Webster Shamu had challenged the media to be professional.

‘‘Over the years, we have not carted real news to the reader, rather we have become news ourselves, peddled out our own positions as news. News has not been about what has happened in our country.

‘‘Our sense of news has been where we stand vis-à-vis occurrences in the country. We have editorialised news heavily, in the process becoming a distorting medium to the free flow of information . . .

‘‘Parties to a raging dispute simply can not be watchdogs of the same fight. At best they are sentinels, and sentinels are part of a combat force. We have to reconstruct our role as a genuine fourth estate that can be trusted to play a watchdog role,’’ he said.

The conference, held at the Caribbea Bay Hotel, drew participants from the public and private media, Community Newspapers Group, Zimbabwe Union of Journalists, Association of Freelance Journalists, the University of Zimbabwe, Midlands State University, National University of Science Education, Solusi University, Zimbabwe Open University, Southern Africa Regional Documentation Centre, and the Church among others.

Justice and Legal Affairs Minister, Patrick Chinamasa and Attorney General, Johannes Tomana, were among the high-profile delegates who presented papers to the conference.

The conference was co-chaired by Vice Chancellors Dr Primrose Kurasha (ZOU) and Professor Norman Maphosa (Solusi University).

Labels: MEDIA, SANCTIONS

posted by MrK @ 7:23 PM