KADOMA — Media managers have been urged to embrace modern technology and use of social media to tell their stories better and quicker, a media expert has said.
MOSES MATENGA STAFF REPORTER
Paula Fray, a South African award-winning journalist and former editor, told local editors attending a Voluntary Media Council of Zimbabwe (VMCZ)-organised media managers’ training workshop in Kadoma yesterday to keep abreast with technological advancements.
“If you think you can hold your story for tomorrow, you are living in the ’80s. You have to embrace social media. You can’t now afford to hold onto a story. You can’t just do that anymore,” Fray said.
“You can’t do news these days without social media. Social media these days is a way we share our life. A newsroom leader of today should be different from a media leader of yesteryear. One thing is certain in the media today and it’s change.”
Co-facilitator at the workshop and veteran journalist John Masuku also implored media managers to think strategically and be in the habit of planning things in order to tell a story in a more exciting way.
VMCZ programmes officer Faith Ndlovu also encouraged editors should continuously develop themselves and stay on top of trends if they wanted to sustain their products and remain relevant to their audiences.
Speaking at the same event, VMCZ board member and Zimbabwe National Editors’ Forum chairman Brian Mangwende said: “This programme is critical for media managers in that it comes with it a lot of benefits such as increasing employee motivation, innovation and in strategies and adaption to new technologies, reducing staff turnover as well as increasing job satisfaction and morale among employees. The programme also aims at increasing efficiencies in processes and enhancing the media house’s image where ethics training is an integral part of our profession to avoid brown envelop journalism which threatens to compromise our work.”
