dyton mupawaenda
Robson Sharuko
H-Metro Editor
TODAY is our final physical copy of H-Metro for this year.
We are taking our traditional Christmas break and we will be back on the streets on January 5.
Regular readers of our newspaper know that we have always taken a break at this time of the year.
We know H-Metro is now a big part of the lives of millions of Zimbabweans and we owe it to them to keep this brand alive and relevant to their needs.
It’s also time to thank our dear readers, and advertisers, whose support has kept us alive in a media landscape which is changing very quickly.
It doesn’t mean we will stop publishing news, during that break, but we will only be on our digital platforms.
By the time we appear again on the streets next month, things will also be changing at this newspaper, in terms of editorial thrust and generally how we report our news in what should be an exciting time for us and our readers and advertisers.
On December 1, this year, I marked THREE years as Editor of this newspaper after taking the baton from my colleague Lawrence Moyo, the founding Editor of H-Metro.
It’s been quite a challenge in a volatile and ever-changing media landscape but, with the dedicated team we have here, I believe we have tried our best to keep H-Metro not only relevant but also as the leading lifestyle tabloid newspaper in this country.
It’s a difficult challenge when there are vultures out there who only wait for us to post breaking news on our platforms and they feast on the news, without any shame, and without being guided by the ethics which say they should always credit us for our work.
Then, the news is distributed via WhatsApp groups, and other platforms, with these vultures even claiming that it is their story and they were then when, for instance, police raided Madzibaba Ishmael’s shrine.
Of course, they were not and we were there.
That pre-dawn raid provided us with probably our best story this year and such was the appetite for it that I received calls from many international news organisations, including the BBC, who wanted us to help them with their coverage of this story.
For me, it was a badge of honour just to know that these international news organisations believe in us, and our journalism, and could depend on us to help them in the coverage of such an important story.
Our innovative Special Editions, which we produced for the Harare Derby and the OK Grand Challenge, were game-changing products and such was their impact that today we have published another one on the Black Label Pool National Competition.
We expect to publish more of these products next year because we have seen that these major companies are willing to go into bed with us in these initiatives because they understand we will give them value for money.
It’s not an easy job being H-Metro Editor.
I can reveal today that in the last three years I have lost more friends than I did in the rest of my life.
All of these friends either ended up being a subject of our coverage, after they did some negative stuff, or had friends or relatives who did that.
In the three years that I have been here I have not spoken to Jah Prayzah, Alick Macheso, Freeman or any of our leading artists.
And, it has been deliberate because I told myself that the further I keep away from them the better I can become in terms of being independent enough to cover them in a professional way.
Thank you Zimbabwe for supporting H-Metro!
We will be back soon.
Online Reporter