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Local journalists benefit from VMCZ initiative

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VMCZ has partnered with a number of senior journalists to work on assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on local journalists.

The Voluntary Media Council of Zimbabwe (VMCZ) has partnered with a number of senior journalists to work on assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on local journalists and to come up with ideas on how to mitigate these challenges.

By Staff Reporter

In addition, five of the journalists, who are members of VMCZ, are taking part in Media Pulse, an international programme, which allows the Zimbabwean participants to join global partners in webinar interactions focusing on the impact of COVID-19 on the journalism profession.

The identified journalists will join others from Kenya and Tanzania for the online sessions, in the hope that they can come up with regional initiatives on how media professionals can mitigate the effects of the pandemic.

“The support we are providing is to enable our members to be able to continue to provide a service during the COVID-19 lockdown period, the WiFi routers and the data we are providing will enable the identified media professionals to be able to work outside the of their workplaces, as they continue to inform and educate the nation on the effects of the COVID-19,” Loughty Dube, the VMCZ executive director, said.

The support to members also includes provision of WiFi data for the duration of the lockdown period and interaction with media colleagues in local webinars and professional online discussions around Covid 19 and media professionalism.

On the project, VMCZ received support from the Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNF).

VMCZ has worked on several initiatives in recent years. Annually, VMCZ hosts an awards ceremony in recognition of investigative journalism in the country, with Alpha Media Holdings’ journalists traditionally being among the top performers.

VMCZ is a self-regulatory body that was established by the media fraternity to regulate itself in line with democratic trends throughout the world where self-regulation of the media has enhanced media freedom and subsequently freedom of expression.