POLICE yesterday pledged to mend relations with the media and other stakeholders as part of their plans under the new political dispensation.
BY OBEY MANAYITI
Addressing a media workshop organised by Media Institute for Southern Africa (MISA) Zimbabwe in Harare yesterday, national police spokesperson, Senior Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba said they were working hard to ensure that they would not be judged by their past ‘wrongs’.
The relationship between media practitioners especially from the private media and the police has been frosty owing to heavy handedness exhibited by the law enforcement agents on journalists carrying out their duties.
Charamba said journalists and police must foster a good and fruitful working relationship.
“History has it that journalists at times are at the receiving end and I think in any situation there is a starting point and this is the starting point that after realizing all the challenges that journalists had gone through and that impasse between the police and the media, this is why we started this process,” Charamba said.
“The process is continuous and we are in the process of ensuring that our police officers are trained so that they understands how journalists operate. Without training also they will not really understand but we are in that process, we are engaging with you and at the same time in-house we have also done introspection and we are going to train all our police officers especially those on public order. I want to assure you that we are doing a lot.”
Misa programmes coordinator, Nyasha Nyakunu said it was also important for journalists to stick to ethical standards of reporting during election periods.
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“We expect journalists to be professional in their conduct and stick to the ethics of the profession because it is very vital that journalists put in the public domain quality information that is backed with facts which will assist the citizens to make informed choices,” he said.
