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Online news agencies disregarding elementary journalistic standards
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2006-34
Monday August 21^st - August 27^th 2006

ALTHOUGH online news agencies continue to play an important role in filling the information gap created by the country’s repressive media environment, some of them have dented their credibility by disregarding elementary journalistic standards.

Zimdaily.com was the most noticeable culprit during the week.

The agency lifted about five stories from other publications and simply presented them as its own without attributing their original sources. For example, on August 21 the agency reproduced verbatim two stories on the currency change-over that had appeared the previous week in The Mail and Guardian and the Zimbabwe Independent (18/8).

On the same day, the website plagiarised a story by the South African-based Cape Argus (20/8) on civic groups’ concerns over SADC’s failure to censure President Mugabe during the regional body’s summit in Maseru.

Subsequently (24/8), it ran word-for-word a substantial part of a report by ZimObserver (23/8) on Zimbabwe’s purchase of fighter planes from China. Similarly, its story (25/8) on a rally by one of the MDC faction leaders, Arthur Mutambara, was largely lifted from a report by Peta Thornycroft, which appeared in VOANEWS.COM (24/8).

In all the cases the agency unprofessionally presented the stories as written by its own correspondents.

It is essential that all news organizations, including the online agencies, adhere to basic standards of journalistic practice in their efforts to provide a credible news service. Giving the impression that the work of other individuals and organizations is your own, is plagiarism, an unforgivable violation of ethic journalistic practice that has to be condemned wherever it occurs. Such unprofessional conduct gives the authorities an excuse to retain their tyrannical media laws, which they have used to either silence the private media or stifle the establishment of alternative sources of information.

During the week, The Financial Gazette (24/8) reported how the authorities’ restrictive broadcasting laws have delayed the licencing of independent broadcasters. The paper said the government-appointed Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) had failed to invite applications for private broadcasters despite promising the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Transport and Communications that it would have done so by the end of July.

But while committee chairman Leo Mugabe narrowly accused BAZ for the delays, the authority laid the blame squarely on government’s reluctance to amend sections of the Broadcasting Services Act (BSA), which hinder the licencing of aspiring broadcasters. BAZ chairman Pikirai Deketeke noted: "It becomes difficult if we are to call for applications when we know those eager to apply fail to meet the criteria and requirements", adding "We have made recommendations for the amendment of the BSA but we have not had any input from the ministry".

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