Zimbabwean Journalism is Important to Our Progressive National Being: Respect It.

 By Takura Zhangazha*

A colleague shared with me some social media posts about allegations of the dire state of salary and working conditions of journalists at one of Zimbabwe’s most respected private print and now multi-media company, Alpha Media Holdings (AMH) based in Harare, Zimbabwe. 

It owns the newspapers the Newsday, the Zimbabwe Independent and the Sunday Standard.  Together with a reputation that crosses our national borders as a beacon of free expression in Zimbabwe.  

Other national media companies such as the Zimbabwe Newspapers Group (Zimpapers) also have their reputations (they own not only the Herald, Sunday Mail, Chronicle and Manica Post) among a multiplicity of other radio, newspaper and television stations. Including a new journalism training college.

Not to leave out the Associated Newspapers Group of Zimbabwe group (ANGZ) which owns another private flagship newspaper, the Daily News, the weekly Financial Gazette and an online television station.

There are also other private television, radio and print media houses inclusive of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) but for the purposes of this analysis and defense of journalism the previously aforementioned above cited examples will be enough. 

Now there is a generally unwritten code about journalists and media workers not writing about each other unless there are clear court, ethical, criminal or discrimination issues.  Or in cases where there is the deliberate criminalization of journalism as a profession.

But the social media post the cde shared with me had not been an unknown rumour within media circles about AMH and others I cannot mention due to the fact that the information has not been made as public.

It has been a rumour about the ongoing unfair labour related treatment of journalists and media workers at not only AMH but also in part across the national media industry.

As a clear example, it basically turns out that allegedly journalists working for AMH have not had regular payments of their salaries for at least ten (10) or so months.  With some social media reports also alleging recent extraordinary acts of protests at this state of affairs but also some labour related arbitration processes. 

Having worked in the media and with journalists and media workers (logistics, graphic designers, finance, media freedom advocacy, unionists), in various capacities, I am of the strong persuasion that journalists and media workers are correct not only at AMH but any other media institution in Zimbabwe to air out their views publicly.

Not only about their working conditions, salaries and labour rights but also the state of freedom of expression in Zimbabwe.  As they all come together in the national democratic public interest. Without a default censorship of poor working conditions as well as politicized editorial policing.

 I however understand the idea of the media as a ‘business’.  Almost as though that for Zimbabwe’s media to survive it must be ‘corporatized'. 

As is the case emerging now in the United States of America  (USA) and the global north or east.  Wherein we have oligarchs that can determine national discourse that is preferential to their political and economic interests without accountability to the working conditions of journalists and media workers. In tandem with their right to free expression.

This is where the media industry is viewed from the narrow lenses of assuming it is for monetary and political profit (advertising, clicks, likes, views, winning partisan elections). But not for the public interest purpose of promoting democracy, public accountability and most importantly, freedom of expression. 

This is where the public’s support for journalists also becomes important.  In an almost dual way.  Where journalistic rights and stable working conditions are protected and they do their public interest job well, the Zimbabwean public will appreciate their profession more. 

Where a public perception is allowed to fester that journalists are pushing ‘brown envelopes’ the public will lose, or in our case, may have lost respect for journalism as a profession. Let alone media ownership and assumptions of the media as industry to simply be a money as opposed to a national freedom of expression consciousness machine.     

Journalism and the media may have been made to appear as though it is simply about the money.  That is not true. 

It is a key cog in any free country’s progressive consciousness.  And note that I deliberately mention ‘progressive consciousness’ and not ‘propaganda’.  As is now largely the case in the global north, Russia and China.

Our journalists form a cultural backbone of our country.  Or at least they should.  Where they are at fault, they can be corrected without the general criminalization they have faced since our national independence in 1980.  

It becomes worse when media owners decide that they can and should exploit them in relation to their salaries and spend copious amounts of time without paying them or ignoring their union’s demands for cost of living adjustment negotiations and better working conditions.  

I will conclude with the centrality of the media, journalists/journalism as both a profession to our national independence. 

In its various forms and roles it was central to how we came to perceive of ourselves as Zimbabweans.  

Where we assume it is abstract we are missing its significant historicity.  

Where we mistreat journalists and media workers in relation to not only their salaries or working conditions then we are lost as a country.

I know that the journalist unions including the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ) and the Zimbabwe Graphic and Allied Workers Union (ZIGAWU) are trying their best at getting media owners, parliament, our courts and central government to understand this key point. 

While at the same time defending their members from unfair labour and working conditions.   

However we have to contend with the fact that if you treat journalism and the media as insignificant to the past, present and the future of the country then you may be missing the point of why you own a media house, a private business or are in government/parliament or local council.

And wrongly assume that journalism is about marketing, public relations or social media influencers.  That is not journalism. 

Journalism is a key profession. In its independence and its functions to promote freedom of expression and access to information in the public interest.  Pay the cdes fairly.

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity