staff reporter
Media experts and analysts have called on the government to speedily implement the relevant media law reforms to free the media.this was said at the breakfast meeting hosted by the Media Institute of Southern Africa to commemorate the World Press Freedom day yesterday.
Delivering the statement ,Nhanhla Ngwenya the MISA director implored the government to align existing media laws with the new constitution. He urged the government to consider the recommendations made in the Information and Media Panel Inquiry (IMPI) report in implementing media reforms.
Media lawyer Chris Mhike section 62 of the new Constitution now fully guarantees the right to access to information and media practitioners need to take advantage of this. He acknowledged that journalists still face delays and other hurdles in accessing information and urged the government to act on this .
‘The state is under siege and attempts to control the media are the symptoms of a bigger problem’ said academic Ibbo Mandaza.He queried why the state still wants to own or control the media when other countries were moving away from this.
The deteriorating economic environment that has caused sustainability issues is also emerging as a big threat to media freedom. Already the Zimbabwe Mail and Southern Eye have closed down owing to economic pressures. Dumisani Muleya ,editor of the Independent newspaper castigated advertisers who seek to control the editorial policy of media organisations in exchange for advertisement revenue.
The media environment remains difficult to work in for journalists and in some cases even dangerous as laws that criminalize journalism remain in place.
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