‘Media council ill-conceived’

Leroy Dzenga Herald Correspondent
The Zimbabwe Media Council structure was an ill-conceived idea meant to cripple functions of the Zimbabwe Media Commission, ZMC chief executive Dr Tafataona Mahoso has said. Speaking during a public lecture at the Great Zimbabwe University last week, Dr Mahoso said this led to the demise of the council.

Dr Mahoso said the council was a result of negotiations by political parties around 2008 whose proposals were without the media’s best interests.

“The council does not exist, it was chosen, but has never been functional. This is because in the current structure, the council is supposed to have 13 councillors, making it bigger than the commission. Our budget simply could not allow that and attempts to get any additional funding have not been successful,” he said. Dr Mahoso said they had proposed that the council be small with a retired judge, a retired editor and a third person.

“The absence of a council, however, is not to mean that ZMC is not dealing with complaints, we are handling concerns from the public,” he said. The Zimbabwe Media Council, established in 2012, is a statutory body expected to encourage best practices in the media, but budgetary constraints have affected its operationalisation. Dr Mahoso also took time to defend the clause in the Access to Information Protection of Privacy Act which prohibits foreign nationals from being majority shareholders in local media companies. He said local stories should be told from a local perspective.

“We believe Zimbabweans are better placed to tell Zimbabwean stories. Zimbabwean news should be a Zimbabwean product. If foreign organisations want news in Zimbabwe it should be gathered by Zimbabwean journalists, we believe it is only fair,” he said.