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Launch of Independent Media Council set for January
Nyasha Nyakunu, MISA-Zimbabwe
Extracted Monthly Media Alerts Digest November 2006
December 18, 2006

The launch of the envisaged independent, self-regulatory media council is now cast in stone following a series of strategic planning meetings and overwhelming endorsement of the project by publishers, journalists, civic society organisations, political parties, church groups and the business community.

The self-regulatory body, which will be known as the Media Council of Zimbabwe (MCZ), will be officially launched in Harare on 26 January 2007 at a ceremony that will be preceded by the election of nominees into the 11-member media council and the five-member ethics committee.

The nominees, 90 percent of whom have already accepted the nominations were drawn from the judiciary, media, legal fraternity, civic society organisations, church groups and the business community. Among the nominees are retired judges, renowned newspaper publishers, professors, doctors, lawyers, journalists, editors and respected citizens who have served Zimbabwe at the highest levels of integrity and credibility. The publishers, editors and journalists have been drawn from both the private and state media.

The setting of the launch date comes in the wake of extensive nationwide consultative meetings that were led by the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ) and MISA-Zimbabwe under the auspices of the Media Alliance of Zimbabwe. MAZ comprises ZUJ, MISA-Zimbabwe and the Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe (MMPZ).

Strategic planning and report-back meetings were also held with key stakeholders, namely the Zimbabwe National Editors Forum (Zinef), Zimbabwe Association of Editors (ZAE), MMPZ and the Federation of African Media Women in Zimbabwe (FAMWZ) as part of the consultative process which kicked off with the first meeting in Bulawayo on 21 January 2006.

Close to 400 signatories among them journalists, editors, publishers, civic society organisations, representatives of political parties and Members of Parliament from across the political divide endorsed the principle of media self-regulation through the establishment of an independent regulatory body as long overdue.

The consensus among those consulted including the Ministry of Information and Publicity and the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Transport and Communications during a series of meetings held in Harare, Bulawayo, Gwanda, Bindura, Mutare, Kwekwe, Chinhoyi, Marondera, Masvingo and Gweru, was that MAZ should proceed with the establishment of the independent body.

Special tribute goes to the now deceased Minister of Information Dr Tichaona Jokonya for his support and the keen interest he maintained on developments relating to the launch of the media council. The Acting Minister of Information Munyaradzi Paul Mangwana has also been positively unwavering in his policy pronouncements pertaining to the establishment of a self-regulatory media council.

In a related development Margaret Chiduku, the Director of Policy and Legal Research in the Ministry of Justice is on record advising the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights (ACHPR) during its session in Banjul, The Gambia, in November this year, that the government had consented to a self-regulatory mechanism for media practitioners in Zimbabwe. She told the Commission that the launch of the Media Council of Zimbabwe would go a long way in addressing concerns pertaining to the restrictive provisions of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act which gave birth to the statutory Media and Information Commission.

Chiduku confirmed that the government had also received in "good faith" a model Access to Information Bill which was submitted by MISA-Zimbabwe to the government and Parliament of Zimbabwe, copies of which were availed to the Commissioners of the ACHPR. She said the model had already been submitted to the Attorney-General Sobusa Gula-Ndebele.

Messages of support and encouragement have poured in from within the region with the Media Councils of Eastern and Southern Africa whose member countries such as Tanzania , South Africa , Kenya and Botswana have successfully set up or are in the process of establishing independent regulatory councils, leading the crescendo of calls for the establishment of the envisaged independent body.

Inputs from the consultative meetings have already been incorporated into the proposed nationally-binding code of conduct and constitution of the media council. The two documents will be presented for further endorsement and adoption at the convention in January next year.

This stage of advancement followed a strategic planning meeting held in Kadoma in October this year where representatives of MAZ, Zinef, FAMWZ and ZAE agreed to proceed as mandated during the consultative meetings and in line with the regional and international declarations signed by Zimbabwe .

The 1991 Windhoek Declaration, for instance, stresses the need for southern African countries to promote, free, independent, diverse and pluralistic media while the 2002 Banjul Declaration on the Principles of Freedom of Expression in Africa unequivocally states that self-regulation is the best system of promoting high standards in the media.

Tanzania, Zambia , South Africa , Mozambique and Botswana are among some of the SADC countries with functioning codes of conduct and media self-regulatory bodies in compliance with the two Declarations.

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