Zimbabwes media fraternity have this week been given cause to cautiously hope for real media reform, after the publishers of the banned Daily News and Daily News on Sunday were approved for an operating licence.
A Special Board Committee on the Associated Newspaper of Zimbabwe publishing group appointed by the Information Ministry in November 2007, on Wednesday sent a letter to the companys lawyers and to the Information Minister Webster Shamu saying the application for registration for its publications was successful.
This letter serves to advise you that your application for registration as a mass media service provider was successful, the committees acting Chairperson, Edward Dube, wrote to the lawyers. Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe is therefore advised to contact the relevant authority for their licence, Dube added. A similar letter was also sent to Shamu.
Media rights groups have welcomed the decision, saying the way is being paved for an active free media to operate in Zimbabwe. Pierre Ambroise from the Africa Desk of the France based Reporters Without Borders, which has been advocating for media freedom in Zimbabwe for several years, called the move fantastic.
We encourage Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirais government to move ahead with plans to amend the 2002 press law, in order to eliminate draconian articles that were used to suppress independent media, Ambroise added. The promised Zimbabwe Media Council must be quickly created and its members must be guaranteed complete independence.
But the Zimbabwe chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA-Zimbabwe) on Friday said the move should be greeted cautiously. MISA-Zimbabwe Chairman Loughty Dube said the un-banning of the Daily News does not give any reason for hope, explaining that committees and councils should not be the judge and jury of media freedom.
As long as we have bad laws, there is no press freedom. What is needed is an overhaul of the media laws across the board, said Dube.
MISA-Zimbabwe and other media groups have been advocating for a self-regulatory media, arguing that political interference in any form will not usher in media freedom. The dissolution of the restrictive Media and Information Commission was hoped to change the media sphere in the country, but journalists and media in general are still being restricted.
Two senior journalists were earlier this year charged with publishing falsehoods about the detention of 18 activists, after police raided the offices of the private weekly Zimbabwe Independent in May. The government is also so far still ignoring a court ruling on media accreditations, and still requires hefty fees from journalists US$4,000 a year for Zimbabwean reporters working for foreign media. The state media at the same time remains tightly controlled and have a monopoly on the airwaves.
A new media commission with powers to regulate the media is still being formed, leaving it unclear how much power it will exert. Parliaments Standing Rules and Orders Committee (SROC) has shortlisted 28 applicants for public interviews next Monday to sit on the Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC). Of the 28 successful applicants, six are women, one a lawyer, Chris Mhike, and a church minister, Useni Sibanda. Veteran journalists Henry Muradzikwa, Kindness Paradza, Zimbabwe Union
of Journalists President Mathew Takaona, Miriam Madziwa, and Ropafadzo
Mapimhidze have also been shortlisted.
Meanwhile in an encouraging move, leading international broadcasters have been cleared to return to Zimbabwe. The government this week gave the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and the US television news channel CNN permission to work in Zimbabwe again. The BBC has not had a media presence in the country since its Harare correspondent, Joseph Winter, was expelled in 2001. CNN had to pull out of Zimbabwe in 2002.
After many years of government mistrust of international news media, the return of these two leading international broadcasters is a decisive step in the restoration of press freedom in Zimbabwe, Reporters Without Borders Ambroise said.
The decision was a result of a meeting earlier this month between Information Minister Shamu, the BBCs world news editor, Jon Williams, and its Africa bureau editor, Sarah Halfpenny. Shamu met CNNs Johannesburg bureau chief, Kim Norgaard, a few days later. MISA-Zimbabwes Dube meanwhile said the decision to allow the BBC and CNN back into the country is a political move, which has not been supported by real media reform.
Post published in: News