THE new digital first newsroom launched by Zimbabwe Newspapers (Zimpapers) early this week is like new wine in old skins.
Something will break, because technology does not change ethics or human behaviour of bias from a public media that thinks its only duty is to sing praises for government and the ruling party.
All the glitz and razzmatazz exhibited on the launch were a mere ritual, but the serious work and changes needed to be implemented were papered over.
Perhaps, we should go back to the founding of Zimpapers in 1980.
Soon after independence, the generous Nigerian government donated US$5 million to the people of Zimbabwe to buy 51% of Cape Argus, the company that controlled The Herald.
The 51% shares were to be housed under the Zimbabwe Mass Media Trust.
Keep Reading
- Govt bemoans lack of skilled ICT staff
- Potraz moves to curb ‘harmful’ content
- ‘Zim online security lagging behind’
- Govt commissions CICs
The Trust also took over 100% control of Ziana.
The Zanu PF government has deliberately allowed the Trust to be dysfunctional so that it could reign over the new media empire.
Zimpapers is the biggest news publishers in Zimbabwe by far.
It presides over the flagship The Herald, The Chronicle, The Sunday Mail, Sunday News, Kwayedza, Umthunywa, Manica Post, H-Metro and B-Metro.
It now also owns radio stations Star FM, Capitalk and Diamond FM and a national terrestrial television station ZTN.
In simple parlance, it is a media behemoth.
It has total control of the media space in Zimbabwe.
All these are public companies that should show the diversity of Zimbabwe’s tribes, languages, culture and politics in their news coverage.
They should foster unity and development, but critically keeping the government in check.
Zimpapers has moved from being a public media house supposed to make news a public good.
It is now commercial and in pursuit of profits.
Information minister Jenfan Muswere confirmed it at the launch of the converged newsroom.
Said Muswere: “This platform amplifies our responsibility as an institution to inform, educate and entertain the nation.
“With the use of artificial intelligence (AI), information science, it has the capacity and the power to be able to utilise data analytics, to analyse the content and viewership.
“It is a pedestal and catalyst, which is going to contribute to macroeconomic growth, thereby ensuring that we leave no one and no place behind.”
Once a company uses data analytics on content and viewership, the primary motive is to make profits.
They will dish out more of the popular shows that keep audience glued.
Any sane person would know programmes that track performance of State-owned enterprises or investments like Mutapa Investment Fund are less likely to be produced.
Programing that puts government output under the microscope will not wash.
Muswere further imagined that technology removes bias and editorial laziness.
This was a low for a minister.
“It ensures that all the shortcomings in terms of editorial laziness will be cured by the virtue of a converged platform, which will ensure that we share the content, destroy the communication bias and have a seamless information sharing as we support vision 2030,” he said.
It is not a secret that editors at Zimpapers have changed as often as the ministers of Information changed.
Ministers come with their biases and things they prioritise and hence need editors who fit into their scheme of things.
Any foreigner into Zimbabwe will be shocked by the excessive coverage of the President and First Lady on the front pages.
Every other article involving a minister or parastatal official does have to include the line “the President’s leadership and Vision 2030”, as if the audience need remembered every day.
It remains important that Zimpapers staffers need a paradigm shift in their thinking.
They serve Zimbabweans and not political leaders.
They have been entrusted to shape and control important national narratives, not parroting partisan party positions.
The Nigerians were intelligent when they gave Zimbabwe the donation.
It was a smart move to have a Trust to control Zimpapers and not fall directly under the Information minister.
In private conversation with some former Zimpapers’ editors, they are not proud of how they covered Gukurahundi, Willogate Scandal, War Veterans Compensation Fund or the looting of Command Agriculture inputs or push for the farm resettlement audit results.
They acknowledge how important these issues are nationally, but they prefer not to ruffle the feathers of Cabinet ministers or rock the boat.
It is these selective choices of what to write and publish that has killed the public media.
The citizens are kept in the dark.
No amount of technology can change this, and Muswere missed it.
The digital first project will collapse soon.
There is no economic ecosystem to support it. Electricity is sometimes available, data tariffs are among the highest in the region and most people are unemployed.
These are some of the critical drivers of a digital economy and need to be addressed.
More than technology, Zimbabwe still needs more journalists/reporters on the ground covering every district.
It is embarrassing that a national paper or television news sections daily have 70% news from Harare and Bulawayo, yet at the same time claiming no one or no place is left behind.
The deed has been done. Zimpapers has gone not only digital, but also commercial.
It has chosen the path of political party partisanship, profits and producing tabloid news instead of developmental and investigative news.
It, Zimpapers, and the minister wrongly think that technology on its own is the panacea to all media ills.
This was a missed opportunity, but recoverable if government is committed to building a true public media institution.
I’m out!