Zimpapers Logo

Wallace Ruzvidzo

Herald Reporter

Zimbabwe’s media industry has the responsibility to inform the citizenry on gains and developments being achieved under the Second Republic as the country continues to move closer to attaining its national vision of an upper-middle-income society by 2030, a Cabinet Minister has said.

In addition, the country’s success stories against Western hegemony should equally be told, as Zimbabwe continues to prove to its detractors that it is a sovereign state and not a pushover.

In an interview yesterday during a familiarisation tour of Zimpapers, Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister, Dr Jenfan Muswere, said the media had 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.

Not only that, Minister Muswere 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. 

“The media industry has a key role to play in terms of nation building and ensuring that we positively articulate and also produce content whether in rural or urban areas. We also have to be in a position to fight crime and educate the people of Zimbabwe.

“Currently we have a huge fight to liquidate drug abuse across all provinces, at the same time we also have the positive trajectory in terms of achievements under President Mnangagwa. 

“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.

As custodians of the country’s discourse, Minister 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.

“We have a lot to do in terms of telling the Zimbabwe story so a knowledgeable society is very important. If a society is well informed and educated they will have the positive energy in terms of contribution.

“There is need to make sure that we leave no one and no place behind in taking care of all the information and publicity across the country.

Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister Dr Jenfan Muswere (second from right), Zimpapers Group chief executive Mr Pikirayi Deketeke (right) and Zimpapers Television Network general manager Nomsa Nkala share a lighter moment during a familiarisation tour of ZTN studios at Herald House yesterday

“We are now focusing primarily on economic development so we now have the other good stories to talk about as a country. We have stories of triumph and success against Western hegemony,” he said.

The Minister revealed that the Second Republic was accelerating the country’s digitisation agenda, in a bid to leave no one and no place behind as enunciated by President Mnangagwa.

“Given the fact that I am coming from the Ministry of ICT, digitisation is a reality, we are in the fourth industrial revolution and there is need for us to be able to work together seamlessly with the Ministry of ICT as we journey towards an informed upper middle income society by 2030. There is need for us to utilise a lot of ICT equipment for us to be able to build a robust media industry.

“The digitisation agenda will be accelerated, that I can assure you because there is no other way without the requisite ICT infrastructure in place.

“We have had a meeting with the Minister of ICT to find how best we can do infrastructure sharing at the same time we need to move with speed to start having meetings Ministerial advisory council and a committee we are putting in place to make sure that all media houses are in a position to share their concerns. At the same time there is the international cooperation side that we are working with international media houses,” he said.

Minister Muswere commended Zimpapers saying he had been “impressed” by what he had seen during the tour.

“This has given me the opportunity to really understand the cost-cutting measures that have been implemented by ZTN. Of importance is that the infrastructure has been miniaturised but with a very wide reach of 10 million views online.

“I am impressed by the size of the operations that are currently taking place, this is one of the economic dividends that we have achieved as a country by realigning and also ensuring that all citizens in this country are well informed.

“This is one of the most important success stories by the Zimpapers group and I am so impressed,” he said.

The Minister toured The Herald, The Sunday Mail, Kwayedza and H-Metro newsrooms and also toured the television division ZTN where he was apprised of the operations.