ZimJournalists Arise Is Back


Happy New To All. We hope you have had a restful if not prosperous new year’s break. Though most journalists have been slogging on without a break as we are in the “essential” services category.

The year 2006 ended on a shocking note when President Mugabe unveiled plans to stay put until 2010.

The journalism fraternity lost chairman of the Zimbabwe Freelance Association Joe Kwaramba and also veteran journalist Farai Makotsi.

Just as journos wiped their tears to soldier on, two very distressing news to the fraternity filtered in.

We discovered that when Trevor Ncube’s passport was briefly confisticated in 2005, the malicious Zimbabwean government discovered that Trevor’s dad is Zambian. Now the media mogul is involved in a court dispute with the government. Although so far Trevor has refused to talk, speculation has been fueled that this may be used to close down his newspapers. However the Media Information Council, Tafa Mahoso says this will not be the case. Well, we will just have to wait and see.

Just before we could say “Zimbabwe Journalists Arise” our very creative government has come in with new laws on the registration of journalists.
According to the Herald ,mass media services and news agencies are required to to cough out

$600 000, this entails an application fee of $100 000 and a registration fee of
$500 000.

A Zimbabwean journalist working for a local media house will pay $10 000
application fee and $15 000 accreditation fee, while a local freelance
journalist will pay an application fee of $15 000 and an accreditation fee
of $20 000.

The late renewal of accreditation will attract a penalty of $10 000 per day,
$100 000 per day for late renewal of registration and $25 000 for a lost
accreditation card.

A local journalist working for a foreign media would pay an application fee
of US$200 and an accreditation fee of US$1 000.

Application for a temporary accreditation for a foreign journalist will cost
US$100 while accreditation would cost US$500.

Application for permission to operate a representative office of foreign
mass media service or news agency would attract an application fee of US$2
000 and a US$10 000 fee for permission to operate.

The fees were gazetted under the Access to Information and Protection of
Privacy (Registration, Accreditation and Levy) (Amendment) Regulations, 2006
(No.3) published in last Friday's Government Gazette.

Meanwhile for those who still buy the Herald newspaper, its price has gone up. The Herald is now $1 000
The Sunday Mail $1 500
Chronicle $1 000
Sunday News $1 000
Manica Post $1 000
Kwayedza $500
Umthunywa $500
New Farmer $1 000
Zimbabwean Travel $1 500
Trends $1 500

Just before we said journalist, the most “scandalous “ thing happened from within our own circles. A shadowy character, whose sanity is questionable, wrote a poison letter through a dubious news website saying most unprintable stuff about fellow journalists. This was met with deafening silence from our so-called journalism organizations. Without having to demean ourselves to the low-level below the belt journalism practiced by this nut-case, we deplore such reckless defamatory and unsubstantive type of journalism.

Reserve Bank governor is also threatening to sue the Standard over a story over his Mercedes Benz story.

Not a very good start for journalists, but we hope that as the year progresses, things will shape up. We are back after a restful holiday to tackle Zimbabwean journalism issues with zest.

Also we will not be running on a daily basis like we did last year as we prepare for the launch of our new product.

Thank you for your support.