State media houses to digitalise for enhanced output, audience reach— Information minister

By Anna Chibamu

INFORMATION, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister, Jenfan Muswere has called for a complete overhaul of the State media inorder to improve its operations in the digital age.

Addressing journalists at a Cabinet media engagement cafe this Monday at Munhumutapa offices, Muswere expressed concern over the continued decrease of copy circulation at government-controlled media institutions, reiterating the need to digitalise operations.

He said it was important to adapt to new ways of publishing and incorporate digital tools as a means to catch up with other media companies elsewhere.

On that note, Muswere highlighted that this year, his ministry will hold media training sessions in digital media incorporating AI and data analytics for media practitioners to be able to report effectively.

According to Muswere, the number of printed copy has gone down by a huge margin compared to some years back owing to many reasons, amongst them the coming of new and digital media, respectively.

 The minister’s call comes at the backdrop of a number of challenges facing newsrooms, where most are at the brink of collapse due to economic hardships, hence the importance of navigating new ways of survival.

“We have had quite a number of meetings with some of the executives and editors on how best we can deal with the challenges related to the low circulation per day in terms of the print media.

“We are all aware that we used to print more than 200,000, and to less than 10,000 daily circulations, all print media houses combined on average, that we now need to implement digital transformation strategies.

“I can highlight that Zimpapers is undergoing the total transformation of the institution, focusing primarily on digital transformation, behavioural transformation of management, board, and staff, a cultural transformation, and at the same time ensuring that the institution is totally restructured to align with online media platform operations.”

Due to the new technology and new media, online platforms have been the favorite among Zimbabweans who now shun hard copies for online platforms.

The minister emphasised the importance of digital sovereignty to find best ways to work together with all media houses in order to ensure whatever diversity that is there, everyone should always defend Zimbabwe.

“There are some of the programmes that we have put in place, starting with the ZimDigital project, which seeks to ensure that we achieve 100% media sovereignty in our country, and the ZimDigital project received funding in the last quarter of 2024, and we believe that we can catapult television coverage from 38% to 100% within a space of two years.

 “We can also accelerate digital transformation in terms of the ZimDigital for radio from 62% to 100% within the next two years. So, all modalities have been put in place with a steering committee that I chair to ensure that we can accelerate the ZimDigital project,” said Muswere.

 He expects the project will be completed within the first quarter of 2025.

“We are pretty sure that before April, we will be in a position to invite the President to officially launch the ZimDigital project.

“The same applies with the media and communication policy, which will now go through other government processes for refinement and approval. The same also applies with regards to the tax holidays that we have offered to the media fraternity in order to support the growth and robustness of the sector.”

He said among other strategies, the ministry adopted the “heritage-based broadcasting, because our language, culture, values as a people define.who we are, and we have 16 official languages, which also includes Kalanga, Chindawu, and many other local languages.

“So, the primary focus is for us to be able to participate even on the digital highway, even on digital platforms, as you collect, as you gather news and content across the country, let us also support our languages as the modernisation of Montrose Studios is taking place, and this will become the center of heritage-based broadcasting.

“We want broadcasters, media practitioners, to be able to contribute to the digital world in our own local languages, so that each and every Zimbabwean is not left behind. The ZBC restructuring is also taking place,”

Muswere said there are no enemies anymore and media houses should find each other and work towards putting Zimbabwe first regardless of differences.

“Zimbabwe comes first, that it is the responsibility of each and every Zimbabwean, and for the media fraternity, let us always ensure that we protect, advance, and defend the interests and rights of Zimbabwe, that whatever differences.”

Said the minister: “I am also happy to indicate that the members of the Fourth Estate have responded appropriately in order to support nation building. We all know that genocide, wars, instabilities in other countries, it’s the social media, it’s members of the Fourth Estate.

“I’m happy to announce that we’ve had a number of sessions together with the Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC), which commission, in terms of the ZMC Act amendments, we are strengthening the legislation in order to manage the conduct of journalism as a profession.

“We need to protect members of the Fourth Estate, because what we want is diversity, what we want is pluralism, what we want is to ensure that with all those different views, we remain united to defend the media sovereignty of our country,” Muswere said.