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NewsDay

AMH is an independent media house free from political ties or outside influence. We have four newspapers: The Zimbabwe Independent, a business weekly published every Friday, The Standard, a weekly published every Sunday, and Southern and NewsDay, our daily newspapers. Each has an online edition.

Is ZMC doing enough to safeguard media practitioners?

Columnists
THE ongoing legal battle in which Transport, Roads and Infrastructure Development minister Obert Mpofu has been hauled before the courts by his former employees, mainly journalists, for salary arrears amounting to $200 000, makes sad but insightful reading.

THE ongoing legal battle in which Transport, Roads and Infrastructure Development minister Obert Mpofu has been hauled before the courts by his former employees, mainly journalists, for salary arrears amounting to $200 000, makes sad but insightful reading.

Sad because this is a case of men and women who woke up overnight having lost their source of livelihood in this punishing economic climate; insightful in that it prickles contentious questions on whether the Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC) is doing enough, on its part, to ensure that it grants licences to entities capable of sustaining operations in the process safeguarding the career of the media practitioner.

This, nonetheless, is not to blame publishers of the paper in question as we can never fathom the difficulties encountered by an undertaking given the economic paralysis gripping the country.

The thrust is to gaze into the possibility of countering such occurrences in the future through, perhaps, the effecting of rigorous policy. In particular, one may ask whether the ZMC should not take an active interest in checking the financial soundness of those it grants licences. Should they not carry out extensive research on entities before they issue out licences?

It is also understood that The Flame, a newspaper launched recently, is struggling, with employees yet to receive salaries for months. The situation at the paper is reported to be dire and it might turn out be a repeat episode of what happened at the Zimbabwe Mail.

One is left pondering: What exactly goes under consideration before the commission grants operating licences to publishers?

Does the commission have mechanisms in place to determine between publishers who can last the distance and those who will fizzle out a few months down the line? Should the media commission not be doing more to protect those who have taken journalism as a profession because, just like you and me, journalists need job security?

To many, a media commission’s role is largely seen as that of a watchdog to which the public can report unethical conduct by journalists. However, the commission has a lot more significant functions and responsibilities. The Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC) is established by section 248 of the current Constitution, with section 249 detailing its core functions.

The ZMC is one of the many essential commissions set up in terms of the new Constitution with critical responsibility towards promoting a vibrant media in the country. The commission is tasked with upholding, promoting and developing freedom of the media.

It is also tasked with formulation of codes of conduct for persons employed in the media. It is without doubt that the ZMC has a crucial responsibility towards development of media in the country and, in its absence, chaos would result and unethical practices would reign supreme.

Now, while it remains critical for the commission to promote acceptable practices, it is also critical that vigorous protection is given to those who have picked journalism as a career.

This is so, given that the ZMC, chief among its functions, is to conduct research into issues relating to the media and to promote reforms in the law.

It’s time the commission actively looked into ways of ensuring and strengthening job security for the journalist. Journalists are fathers and mothers with aspirations, bills to pay and families to feed.

And for them to be operating in an environment where they are unsure whether they will wake up tomorrow morning to be told that a newspaper has closed down does not do much to inspire confidence in the profession.

The Zimbabwe Mail newspaper being a case in point where, having been operational for a year as a daily, the paper staggered as a weekly for a month before it unexpectedly suspended operations leaving dozens of breadwinners wondering where the next meal would come from.

Some employees reckon that they only learnt of the ill-starred development on radio. Surely, such capricious termination of an adult’s source of livelihood is devoid of feeling, to say the least.

While immense focus has been given, even going by ZMC’s constitutional obligations, on ensuring ethical media conduct, little is said about protecting their source of livelihood. Surely, wasn’t it part of wisdom before granting operational licences to design systems for attesting an entity’s capability to sustain operations for a period of at least two years?

In my view, publishers ought to provide ability to sustain salaries and other accompanying financial prerequisites to the satisfaction of the commission before being allowed to operate.

This should not be seen in any way as being vindictive, but is in the best interest of the media profession.

It is not pleasant when employees and their employer have to drag each other before the courts in less than a year when a little peek into financial capabilities of publishers would have aided matters.

Honestly, it appears more prudent for ZMC, as a critical step, to determine every prospective undertaking’s capability to sustain operations before granting them the green light, otherwise what is happening presently breeds injustice.

There is need to protect the job security of media practitioners as much as there is need to promote media development.

Learnmore Zuze is an author, legal researcher and social analyst. He writes here in his own capacity. E-mail: [email protected]