Midlands’s journalists hails Telecel Zimbabwe

The workshop was organised by the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ) in partnership with Telecel Zimbabwe. Alpha Media Holdings (AMH) online editor John Mokwetsi said it was a great success.

Journalism has changed now; the way we produce news and even the way our consumers consume news has changed. “In this world of expanding horizons we need to embrace ICT so that we enhance our news gathering methods and skills,” said ZUJ’s Secretary General Foster Dongozi in his introduction.

“The workshop was quite an eye-opener in terms of how social media can be used to reach out to audiences and information dissemination. ICT seems technical and complicated but the guys simplified the subject and made it understandable. More of these workshops should be conducted as ICT is dynamic and ever changing in order to keep up with the trends.”

“It was a good deal particularly at this juncture of media multiplicity,” said the Times newspaper reporter, Delicious Mathuthu.

With the massive journalists retrenchment in Zimbabwe there is need for the scribe to re-enforce digital media.

Journalists must harness online media publications before citizen “journalists” invade their space, veteran journalist and ICT expert Mokwetsi advised.

“I urge you professional journalists to embrace new media technology and help revamp the country’s media sector before it is too late. As you can see the information technology (ICT) is rapidly transforming media operations. It is quite surprising to note that most if not all of the Midlands based community newspapers have no websites let alone facebook pages. I urge editors to move with the changing times or die,” Mokwetsi added.

The remarks came at a time when the use of social media is increasing as more people across the globe get connected to the internet.

“Technology has disrupted the media environment, methods of packaging and news gathering has changed. Now we have approximately half the population connected to the internet, people are now sharing news on their own and we need to take journalism in that context.”

Most media houses in the country, particularly community newspapers, are yet to have websites. They still use obsolete ICT equipment.

The situation has been compounded by the failure of local tertiary institutions to expose students to modern ICT.

Mokwetsi said changes in ICT had increased the reach of media products and hence the need for media houses to adapt to the changes.

“Everything is now global, news distribution used to be hyper-local but now because of the advent of internet it’s now global. Media houses and journalists must have websites and social media policies,” he said.

He further urged journalists to effectively use twitter and other contemporary social media networks in both processes of gathering and imparting information.