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By Marlvin Ngiza
The Zimbabwe Association of Community Radio Stations (ZACRAS) in partnership with the Voluntary Media Council of Zimbabwe (VMCZ) yesterday hosted a community radio code of ethics review workshop.
The workshop was about structuring a code of ethics for community broadcasters in order to ensure proper packaging and dissemination of quality, reliable information by the community radio stations.
Speaking just after the workshop, ZACRAS national acting coordinator Mlondolozi Ndlovu expressed satisfaction in the outcomes of the workshop saying that the reviewed code of ethics will challenge misinformation that has been brought about by social media by ensuring the dissemination of authenticated content.
“It was a very fruitful meeting because stakeholders from the community broadcasting sector contributed to the development of this reviewed code of conduct.
“It was very important for community broadcasters and stakeholders in the media to meet and discuss the importance of having a code of ethics for community broadcasters. Now that community radio stations have been licensed, we would want to focus on issues of ethics and professionalism to ensure that as community radio stations go on air, there are no cases of misinformation and lawsuits as a result of failing to abide by certain standards.
“With the advent of social media, everyone claims to be a journalist but ethics and professionalism are not maintained so we would want to ensure that all community radio stations abide by the VMCZ complaints mechanisms so that when members of the public have concerns, they will actually report to the VMCZ,” said Ndlovu.
Voluntary Media Council of Zimbabwe (VMCZ) Executive Director Lofty Dube said the review came at the right time when the government is widening the territory for community broadcasters.
Dube added that the idea of having the reviewed code of conduct is to ensure that community radio broadcasters abide by ethics to ensure ethical operations and professionalism.
“The review comes at a good time when the government is opening up space for community radio stations. Just last week, the Avuxeni FM was launched in Chiredzi.
“The review of this is to have community radio broadcasters trained on ethics so that they are able to execute their job in a proper manner that allows them to be ethical and professional. It is VMCZ’s hope every time that we continuously train journalists so that they enhance their ethics and professionalism in the media,” said Dube.
Dube indicated that the reviewed document of the code of ethics is expected to be released by the end of this month.
“We are getting inputs from community radios and once we are done with receiving the inputs. I can assure you that by end of this month we will have the revised code of ethics,” added Dube.
The review of the code of ethics is done after every five years. The code of conduct for community radio broadcasters was developed in 2015 by VMCZ in partnership with ZACRAS.
