Uphold, exhibit professionalism, Minister urges journalists

GOVERNMENT has urged journalists and media outlets to abide by professional ethics in the discharge of duty and warned them against recklessly linking the First Family and Government officials to alleged criminals without verifying their facts.

In a statement yesterday, Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister, Dr Jenfan Muswere, said the Government has noted with concern the increasing tendency to violate journalism ethics, where some media practitioners have the propensity to imaginarily link the First Family and Government officials to alleged corruption and criminality.

For the record, Dr Muswere said President Mnangagwa is very clear in condemning corruption and has put together structures to destroy the scourge.

“The Government has zero tolerance to corruption and no one is above the law. The police and the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) should investigate without fear or favour.

“The media has been caught up in this web of deceit wherein they rush to imagine and link anyone without verifying the name dropper’s association to the official and the illegality,” said Dr Muswere.

“It is our expectation that the media should always uphold and exhibit professionalism in delivering their mandate and always verify news stories before publication. “Adherence to basic tenets of ethical journalism is of paramount importance.”

Professionalism across the world demands that media practitioners uphold the highest ethical standards in their reporting guided by the principles of fairness, accuracy, impartiality and objectivity in their work.

The Government has on several occasions called upon the media to be responsible in their reporting. Last year during a familiarisation tour of ‘Zimpapers’ Dr Muswere said the media has a crucial role to play in nation building and ensuring that Zimbabweans are kept abreast on achievements that the country continues to attain on all fronts.

He said the country’s media industry also had an equally important obligation, to amplify the fight against various vices in society, including crime and drug and substance abuse.

“We have a lot of good stories to tell about Zimbabwe. Of importance is a robust decolonisation process across all the young people and at the same time a massive depolarisation in order to unite the people of Zimbabwe so that we have the same goal that Zimbabwe comes first,” he said then.

As custodians of the country’s discourse, Dr Muswere implored media players to tell the Zimbabwean story without any distortions. He said it was crucial that the Zimbabwean story is told by Zimbabweans and not foreigners. — @petematika