Zimbabwe: Media Key in Development Dialogue [opinion]

Development issues are often viewed as dull and boring with a little propensity to spark readers' interest and push up sales for the media in the country.

And as a result, media gatekeepers in most news houses in the country, both public and private, are less likely to use copies on development issues.

This has seen the Zimbabwean media failing to adequately perform its role of teaching, informing, educating and entertaining the public, in addition to encouraging socio-economic and political development.

A Media Roundtable on Millennium Development Goals in Zimbabwe revealed that media reporting on developmental issues in the country has not been adequate with both the public and private media giving prominence to politics and business issues while development issues are scarcely covered.

Development stories had little understanding of the root causes of poverty issues, employed short-term approach and with no follow-up.

Problems in the coverage included: incorrect use of data, terms and concepts; sensationalism; focus on the problem and not on the solution; lack of interest in development issues, prejudice against stigmatised groups and lack of skills to handle ethical dilemmas among other issues.

All over the world news media are strapped for cash.

Development news is expensive to cover, compared for instance with political issues or scandals. Editors say it doesn't help to sell newspapers as sports and arts news does.

Reporters are poorly paid and do not have time to investigate different subjects on development-related issues. Journalists lack access to reference information.

Some don't have a budget to travel or even to make long distance calls.

United Nations Millennium Campaign deputy director for Africa, Charles Ebugre says media reports are critical in development because of its agenda-setting role, but regretted that the media have not done much in the area of development reporting in terms of follow-up and shadowing official reports on issues affecting the majority of the poor.

"The media has a critical role to play in development and it is imperative to give priority to issues affecting the poor. Fixation with politics is overshadowing development issues," he said.

Media academics say commercialisation of news, ownership pattern, management policy, total dependence on the Press releases, apathy for reading and research by journalists covering development issues, lack of facilities, conflicts and confrontations between the government and the media, pressure on journalists to beat deadlines and money journalism are some of the challenges affecting development reporting.

Thomas Deve, the UNMC policy analyst says journalists need to focus more on issues of poverty and Millennium Development Goals to help promote basic human rights such as the right to food, health, education, clean environment, shelter and human dignity in line with the commitments made by the Zimbabwe government and other world governments to the attainment of MDGs by 2015.

The media, he says, has a duty to perform its functions creditably as partners in the development process to reduce the inequalities in Zimbabwe, deepen good governance, accountability and transparency. This, he says, involved reporting on the prevalence of fraud, waste and corruption in both the private and public sectors.

"As journalists, we need to ensure that all development programmes are pro-poor, gender sensitive and pay due attention to the majority of the poor who are living in abject poverty," said Deve.

"At the back of our minds ,we must always think about the poor. It's the indignity of living in poverty that should be of concern to all of us.

"We should demand social justice so that the poor may live in a dignified way." This writer said development stories were a "hard sell" to editors and that journalists often struggled to convince editors to use their development stories.

Most editors, the writer said, saw development stories as dull and boring and would not sell papers. However, he said, it was critical for the journalists to be creative and innovative in packaging their stories with a "human face," using a concept he called -- "edutainment" mixing development messages with entertainment for editors to use their copies.

Music and the arts were another important vehicle to relay development messages in a way that could generate public interest. Journalist, the writer told participants, needed to be creative and innovative to generate interest on development issues as well as to ensure that their copies sail through the media gatekeepers.

He said there was also need for journalists to cover new and emerging issues -- GMOs, genetic engineering, climate change, bio-fuels, conservation farming (as a response for drought and climate change mitigation) and other fields and assess their impact on the lives of the poor smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe and across Africa.

Journalists, he concluded, should challenge the glossy reports from government so as to ensure that the real picture on the ground is captured.

Vincent Kahiya of the Zimbabwe Independent differed with the writer arguing that politics overrides everything in Zimbabwe. He said if one put a story on development as a lead, most papers in the country would go bankrupt.

He said the development story had to be told in the political language in order for the copy to be used by editors. Senator and Chief Nyamukoho of Mutoko made a useful and inspirational contribution on the debate on the media and the MDGs.

He asked whether it was proper for the media and MDGs activists and NGOs to "Think for them, act for them, legislate for them" (the excluded and marginalised communities in the rural areas).

He criticised the media and MDGs activist for paying too much attention to the problems that affect people in urban areas at the expense of the majority of the poor who live in the countryside.

Chief Nyamukoho said rural communities themselves were the ones who understood the problems they confronted better. "Are we saying we talk for them or we act for them? Development for whom? he asked.

"You have to start with us if you want to talk about development. We understand the foundations of our problems much better than you."

He asked where the media and the MDG campaigners placed rural communities in this movement to fight hunger and poverty. Indirectly, he spoke strongly about the need to promote participatory development approaches that respect the right of rural communities to set the development agenda for themselves not vice-versa.

A participant noted that media freedom and media plurality was critical for the attainment of MDGs by 2015. He said Zimbabwe needs media freedom and plurality to deepen governance, accountability and transparency and ensure that the majority of the poor have access to basic social services.

Evans Mushawevato of New Ziana said journalists needed support and resources to conduct investigative journalism and to reach out to remote parts of the country.

He urged the UNMC to set up a fund for investigative journalism on MDG-related issues.

"We have no resources to report on development issues in remote parts of the country. Journalists are prepared to travel out of town and report on issues affecting people at the grassroots. But we have no resources and it's difficult to do anything without resources," he said.

Deve challenged the media to track progress made on MDGs giving a platform to the poor to freely express how they feel in the progress review process.

He urged the civil society organisations and the media to develop shadow reports that closely mirror the reality on the ground and bring out the contrasts given in official reports.

People, he said, need to make the audits themselves about the conditions in which they live under. CSOs and the media were urged to develop partnerships to run surveys on the performance of local authorities. Citizens score cards, he said, should be developed to assess progress on MDGs and track the budgeting process.

He said tracking the US$8 million constituency development fund, town hall meetings for residents, reporting on the deplorable living conditions in slum dwellings such as Mbare and others would help to deepen government accountability and transparency.

The media, he said, should always side with the cause of the poor and engage in truth trailing demanding justice and service delivery to the poor. Deve said even the private sector should be held accountable to the people given the massive corruption that often went unreported in this sector.

He said the media should not only fix its eyes on the government alone but the private sector as well, particularly the banking sector were the poor were ripped off their money in recent years.

The media functions place journalists in a good position to promote development. It is up to journalists to use their profession to deliver, now and again, to tell the reality of life of the majority of the poor and expose inequalities, think about what arouses people other than catastrophe, sex, politics and finance.

The media is an indispensable part of tackling poverty, improving development and enabling Zimbabwe and most countries in Africa to attain their development goals.

The meeting included freelance, journalists, editors and reporters from both the state and private media, CSOs, legislators and MDGs campaigners.

The meeting stimulated a collective commitment by the participants to ensure that the media makes in-depth analysis of issues affecting the poor to make both local and national governments accountable for their plans, policies and programmes.

Participants examined their own perceptions on the role of the media in the achievement of MDGs. They urged the media to make conscious and concerted efforts to highlight the eight set of goals -- the world's agreed blue print for building a better world.

Achievements, failures and gaps were identified and participants resolved to find creative and innovative ways to better articulate MDG-related issues in way that would generate public interest and strengthen governance, accountability and transparency by the local and national governments.

Journalists at the forum used the opportunity to express their challenges in development reporting which include, among other things, ownership pattern, lack of modern equipment, gatekeepers (editors) perception on news reporting and the need to beat deadlines.

They were stronger calls for the media to play a more proactive role in Africa's development as most participants viewed the media as an essential part of the dialogue on development in Zimbabwe and Africa. The forum was an important opportunity to engage the media, legislators, CSOs and MDGs campaigners to help place media at the heart of the development process in Zimbabwe and Africa.

Some of the key recommendations made included:

• Media should play active role in reporting on poverty to deepen governance, accountability and transparency

• Media should reach out to the grassroots and ensure rural communities voice their concerns on MDG-related issues that affect them

• Develop creative and innovative ways of reporting on development issues to generate public interest and ensure copies sail through the media gatekeepers · Use edutainment  packaging of development messages with entertainment to make development stories appeal to readers

• Build synergies with CSOs and deepen coverage of MDG issues

• Conduct investigative journalism and go beyond what leaders say on development issues

• lTrack budgetary processes and develop score cards to ascertain progress on MDGs

• Simplify technical jargon on economics (GDP and Growth rates) and put human faces to it to shadow glossy reports from government officials

• Respect and recognise views and concerns of marginalised rural communities to deepen participatory democracy Recognise role of traditional leaders in development

• Track MDG progress report process and ensure report mirrors reality on the ground before the September UN summit

• Report on new and emerging issues (climate change, biofuels, biotechnology, GMOs) and examine their implications on the livelihood of the poor

• Media freedom and media plurality critical for the attainment of MDGs by 2015

• Self-confidence, faith and belief in African values, history and culture critical for understanding relations with West and their implications of poverty

• Create fund for investigative journalism on MDG-related issues

• Media has role to play in making government to work for the people

• Real judgment of government performance lies in the quality of service delivery to the poor

• Media should always side with cause of the poor and engage in truth trailing demanding justice and service delivery to the poor

• Media should hold private sector accountable apart from focusing on government failures. Acknowledge and report on government achievements

• Desist from verbatim reporting and challenge statements from government officials

• Private media must focus more on development issues.

Media must be proactive in getting information and policy positions on contemporary issues. There is need for more initiatives to improve reporting on development issues.

Designing a new generation of tools aimed at improving reporting of development issues, a paradigm shift and more importantly resources for journalist are critical to stimulate interest among scribes on development matters.

 - March 23.03.10 by Sifelani Tsiko (in the Herald, published by the Zimbabwean government)

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Source: allafrica.com/stories/201003230064.html (accessed  on 23.03.10)