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Towards the transformation of the ZBC into a public broadcaster
MISA-Zimbabwe
August 08, 2007

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1 Introduction

Zimbabwe, being a member of such bodies as the United Nations (UN), the African Union (AU), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), is party to such documents as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Windhoek Declaration, the African Charter on Broadcasting and the SADC Protocol on Culture, Information and Sport. All these declarations require that signatory states respect basic human rights, especially freedom of expression, and in particular, they call for the creation of an enabling environment for media freedom, pluralism and diversity. Some of these declarations set minimum standards for the transformation of the state broadcasters into genuine public service broadcasters (PSBs) that are protected against political or commercial interference and whose programming serve the public interest.

This paper seeks to advance the Media Institute of Southern Africa-Zimbabwe's position on the need to transform the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) into a truly public service broadcasting (PSB) entity. To achieve this, the paper starts by giving a background to MISA and its activities, mission and values, as well as the organisation's key programme areas. This is followed by defining the role of the media in society and a definition of the notion of PSB, as a way of providing some conceptual background. It is argued that PSB plays too crucial a role in the democratisation and development of a nation to be left to the whims of a Ministry which is only accountable to the Executive alone. The paper then outlines international laws and norms that deal with media freedom in general; and specifically those dealing with the need for the transformation of state broadcasters into genuine PSBs. After analysing the current state of affairs at the ZBC, the paper offers recommendations on how the Corporation can be successfully transformed, and an extensive example is drawn from the successful transformation of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC). Recommendations on media law reform, governance, programming, funding, and guidelines on election reporting (among others) are given towards the end of the paper. The paper concludes by arguing that an untransformed ZBC is actually a threat to itself as it runs the risk of being obsolete.

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