Story by Bruce Chahwanda, Political Editor
THE Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services, Honourable Zhemu Soda, has urged the media to adapt to the rapidly changing media landscape through digitisation and modernisation to remain relevant and effectively inform the public.
Minister Soda made the remarks during a familiarisation and appreciation tour of the Zimpapers Group in Harare this Thursday.
The minister toured the media house alongside officials from the ministry and commended the organisation for its nationwide coverage.
“I am happy with the way that they are covering the whole nation, in terms of ensuring that no one and no place is left behind. There are various prints, the news which goes to various places, and their radio. And we will continue to do much more as a government to ensure that they are assisted, especially ensuring that the signal distribution is fair throughout the whole country. We have some places currently which are not receiving news, whereas we would want everybody to be on board, especially as we march towards the realisation of Vision 2030, where no one and no place must be left behind. For the public and to educate the public, the news must not be contaminated. That is what I can say to the media.”
Zimpapers Group Chief Executive Officer, Mr William Chikoto, briefed the minister and his delegation on the company’s digital transformation efforts and highlighted the organisation’s alignment with government policy direction.
“We were also able to show him our television studios, and he spoke at length about how we should collaborate as Zimpapers and ZBC. We are one family that we need to explore ways of collaborating, that we should not be competing, that we should be working as one team. So we are very excited that there is going to be more collaboration as we go forward.”
The familiarisation tour took the minister through the Zimpapers newsroom, television studio, training school, radio studios and the printing press.
