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Blessings Chidakwa
Herald Reporter
Fourteen of the 48 television and radio transmitters being set up across the country by Government to improve broadcasting services are now ready for commissioning.

Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Deputy Minister Kindness Paradza revealed this yesterday during a tour of the country’s largest diversified media group, Zimpapers.

Deputy Minister Paradza said while the Second Republic was open to criticism, journalists were encouraged to do solution-based reporting for the development of the country.

He was accompanied on the tour by Zimpapers board chair Mr Tommy Sithole, chief executive Mr Pikirayi Deketeke, board members and senior staff members. Deputy Minister Paradza said hundreds of television set-top boxes (STBs) will be issued out freely in remote areas as part of Government’s thrust to increase access to information.

A set-top box is an information appliance device that generally contains a TV-tuner input and displays output to a television set and an external source of signal, turning the source signal into content in a form that can then be displayed on the television screen or other display device.

“We have 48 transmitters under the digitalisation programme and about 14 of them are ready. The Minister is going to launch them next month just before independence or around that time,” he said.

Deputy Minister Paradza (second from left) accompanied by Herald Editor Hatred Zenenga (left), his deputy Lovemore Mataire (second from right) chats with Herald news editor Farai Dzurutwe (right) during a familiarisation tour at Herald House in Harare yesterday

“We are going to have three sites around the country and we are going to target the marginalised areas where we want to have about 300 set-top boxes for television so we are going to give these out freely to people with televisions so that they will be able to capture channels like ZBC and new channels including (Zimpapers Television Network) ZTN news.” Deputy Minister Paradza first toured the company’s commercial printing division, Natprint, the radio division entities, StarFM and Capitalk 100.4 FM, before proceeding to Zimpapers’ head offices at Herald House in central Harare.

There, Deputy Minister Paradza toured The Herald, ZTN, The Sunday Mail, H-Metro and Kwayedza newsrooms as well as other departments, taking time to interact with workers.

Deputy Minister Paradza said the tour was assigned by his boss Minister Monica Mutsvingwa so that he could get a feel of what was happening in terms of operations.

Deputy Minister Paradza speaks to ZTN head Nomsa Nkala yesterday. —Pictures: Memory Mangombe

“You know the media landscape has changed in Zimbabwe and elsewhere and we wanted to know whether Zimpapers is well prepared for competition which is coming in, be it in print media, broadcasting and other electronic media,” he said.

Deputy Minister Paradza said part of the purpose of the tour was to check on the progress on innovations being done at Zimpapers including the setting up of ZTN, radio stations and the idea of media convergence.

“We are also giving them some tips on what they can do to make sure that Zimpapers products are attractive. So these were the interactions we were doing with the board and management,” he said.

“I also had a meeting with editors to discuss content. We need to improve as people want to read and watch exciting news. We want news from the rural areas to be published in our publications so that the authorities also hear what rural people are saying as mass communication is a two-way process.

Deputy Minister Paradza is shown page layouts by Production Editor Rosenthal Mutakati while flanked by Zimpapers board chairman Mr Tommy Sithole (right), Zimpapers chief executive Mr Pikirayi Deketeke (second from right) and senior management at Herald House in Harare yesterday

“They are going to be working with our information officers as the ministry has about 68 information officers dotted around the country so every day they produce copy which can be used here at Zimpapers.”