Media panel hails Nust

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Impi chairperson Geoffrey Nyarota said of all outreach meetings his panel had conducted in different parts of the country Nust emerged as the major highlight

THE Information and Media Panel of Inquiry (Impi) chairperson Geoffrey Nyarota yesterday said of all outreach meetings his panel had conducted in different parts of the country, the National University of Science and Technology (Nust) emerged as the major highlight. JUNIOR MOYO OWN CORRESPONDENT

Academics and students stressed the need for the government to repeal defamation laws and align them with the new Constitution, saying they affected the media industry.

They also highlighted the issue of self-regulation of the media following perceptions that media houses were seemingly aligned to political parties making their news production partisan.

“We want to impose democracy in terms of media self-regulation to prevent unfair representation of political parties in the media,” one of the academics said.

Another lecturer said the media should be accountable to Parliament not the Information minister. Bhekimpilo Sibanda called for licensing of community radio stations to cover marginalised minority groups.

“We want licences to be given to community radio stations so that the minority groups can also be represented,” he said.

“We also want the money we pay for licences to be compartmentalised to improve the media industry.

“The money should also be used in universities to equip students so that they could be what the media expects them to be when they go into the industry.”

Another participant said there was need for Zimbabwe to create a rainbow nation so that people of different cultures could understand each other.

Participants called on the print media to produce actual stories and not mislead readers with sensational articles for the sake of profits.

Nyarota rated yesterday’s proceedings as the best.

“This meeting has been the best so far as we had to engage academics on the state of the media in Zimbabwe,” he said.

He also revealed that the public meeting set for Gwanda tomorrow would now be held today as they did not want to clash with a meeting to be addressed by Vice-President Joice Mujuru.