adminInformation and Publicity Minister Webster Shamu said yesterday.
Minister Shamu said it was “tragic” that instead of serving as African institutions, some media organisations were imitating Western journalistic practices and standards.
He was speaking during the official opening of the 16th Sadc Media Awards Regional Adjudication Committee meeting in Harare yesterday. Representatives from all the Sadc member states are attending the weeklong meeting.
Said Minister Shamu: “African journalists should always be bound by ethical foundations in our African society. They should be reminded that they can still excel continentally and globally without serving Western interests,” he said.
He took a swipe at some Western powers pouring money into the country’s media institutions and individuals as part of the regime change agenda in Zimbabwe.
This, Minister Shamu said, has led to the abundance of “junk” stories bordering on hate speech and vilification of national leaders.
“Those among you that closely follow developments in the media in this country will agree that brown envelope journalism has become a menace as increasing amount in both print and electronic media is being lost to stories published at the behest of foreign interests investing millions of dollars in pursuit of regime change.
“There is scarcity of quality stories projecting national and regional programmes and projects aimed at variously empowering and improving the welfare of our citizens,” he said.
He, however, noted that low remuneration of journalists in the region was also contributing to “unprofessional journalism.”
Turning to the annual awards, Minister Shamu hailed them saying they promote integration in the region and celebrate excellence in the field of journalism. He said journalism was a noble profession, which deserved sombre attention and support of modern state governments.
“In that respect, we wish to take this opportunity to express our profound appreciation to the Sadc Council of Ministers and Heads of State and Government for continuing to support excellence in journalism through these awards.
“Unless reined-in, motivated and mobilised to project values and objectives commonly shared by society, the media can be subverted to play a very retrogressive role in development,” he said.
He expressed the need for the Sadc member states to secure more sponsorship to increase competition prizes at both the national and regional levels
“A common challenge in adjudicating media awards is usually the problem of few entrants in a given category or across categories. The above challenges can only be addressed by increasing competition at national level and that demands making the competition attractive to journalists by awarding fairly good prizes,” he said.
He reminded the committee to carry out the adjudication exercise with fairness and professionalism. Sadc media awards committee meetings are carried out each year on a rotational basis and Zimbabwe is hosting this year’s meeting for the second successive time.
Online Reporter