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Lovemore Chikova, Harare Bureau
THE Government has urged media houses to invest in programmes that promote high ethical standards next year to avoid a repeat of the low standards that characterised the sector this year.

Speaking at an end-of-year reception hosted by his ministry, Information, Media and Broadcasting Services in Harare yesterday, Dr Christopher Mushohwe said the media needed genuine editorial leadership.

“In the area of editorial performance and ethical standards, real challenges are evident and show signs of persisting in the New Year,” he said.

“If truth be said, the industry remains in the throes of an ethical morass, with editoral practices which verge on blatant lapses in professionalism going uncorrected. That is sad.

“A combination of re-training, rigorous in-house standards, shareholder guidance and genuine editorial leadership, should see us faring a lot better in 2017.”

Dr Mushohwe said Government believed in self-regulation by the media, but that could only work if the practitioners were prepared to uphold it.

“It will be a sad day indeed when requirements of professional and ethical discipline will have to be imported into your work places,” he said.

“That day should never come, which is why we must act consistent with the mores of the craft which are so clear and so well known, and which find a loud echo in our laws.”

Dr Mushohwe said this year saw Government making significant investments in media infrastructure and “registered key milestones on the road to migration and digitalisation of the broadcast sector”.

He said while the digitalisation programme was far from completion, the targets were well in sight.

“More remains to be done in respect of the television broadcast culture and the year ahead will see us pay particular attention to work attitudes and professional givenness in that crucial area of communication,” said Dr Mushohwe.

“New hardware must be complemented by new professional and performance outlooks if the sub-sector is to show a new face, acquire a new tempo and reposition for global competition.”

Dr Mushohwe said it was encouraging that tariffs for subscription services in the broadcasting industry were beginning to go down, becoming accessible and affordable to more Zimbabweans.

He said with the broadcast industry getting plural and with the coming of Digital Terrestial Television services, Government expected its goal of universal access to broadcast services to be achieved.

Dr Mushohwe said Government hoped that prospective broadcasters who received licences from the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) but failed to start work, would be on air in the New Year.

‘‘BAZ would be in a position to invite new applications for additional services when the new radio stations were fully established,” he said.

He said the joint sessions of management of different publishers in the print media held this year were encouraging.

Dr Mushohwe said while it was too early for the sessions to transform into joint investments, there was an increasing possibilty of that happening.

He said his ministry will in the next year lead a process of developing comprehensive policies for all facets of the media industry.

There were a wide range of documentation to back the process, including the recently produced Information and Media Panel of Inquiry report, said Dr Mushohwe.

He encouraged particular attention to be paid to the development of content, especially in this era of converged media, to help turn Zimbabwe into a “veritable continental content hub the way India and Nigeria have become”.

The media reception was attended by local and international journalists from various media houses.