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No Accreditation for ANZ journalists
Media Institute of Southern Africa - Zimbabwe Chapter (MISA-Zimbabwe)
February 10, 2004

The Media and Information Commission (MIC) has announced that no journalists from the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe, publishers of the Daily News and Daily News on Sunday will be accredited. The Commission, headed by Tafataona Mahoso, said that the journalists would not be accredited since the Daily News and the Daily News on Sunday are not registered.

In an interview with the government owned paper, The Herald, the MIC chairman disputed suggestion by the publishers of The Daily News and Daily News on Sunday, that it was entitled to publish as misplaced.

"As far as we are concerned The Daily News is not registered," said Mahoso.

Mahoso confirmed that application forms by The Daily News reporters were submitted to the commission last week. He said the journalists were not banished from practising but their registration would only be accepted on condition that they find another employer or editors willing to buy their stories on a freelance basis.

"We don’t banish the journalists because they were at The Daily News," Mahoso said. He was reacting to suggestions by ANZ acting chief executive Mr Brian Mutsau that the newspaper group was not stopped from publishing. Mr Mutsau told The Herald on 6 February that according to the Administrative Court judgment of October 24 last 2003, ANZ was entitled to publish.

The Daily News and The Daily News on Sunday have since stopped publishing following the resolution by its reporters not to work until they got accreditation from the MIC. Mahoso told The Herald that if the ANZ was registered, there was no need for the newspaper group to file a petition at the Supreme Court asking whether it had complied with the law.

"If they were registered they would not have gone to the Supreme Court. It means there is doubt about their status," he said. "I don’t believe Mutsau believes his paper is properly registered." Said Mahoso to The Herald.

Journalists at the ANZ resolved not to work until they got accreditation from the MIC after the Supreme Court ruled that it was a criminal offence for journalists to practise without accreditation from the regulatory body. Ruling on a constitutional challenge by the Independent Journalists Association of Zimbabwe (IJAZ) against compulsory registration of journalists under the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, the Supreme Court upheld that it was constitutional for the Government to make it compulsory for all journalists to get accreditation from the MIC.

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