New ZBH CEO, Henry Muradzikwa Profile

Reporting By NewsNet
Additional Reporting by ZimJournalists Arise

Former Zimbabwe Inter-Africa News Agency (ZIANA) Editor-In-Chief Mr Henry Muradzikwa , is the new Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings Chief executive officer with immediate effect.

Speaking to journalists soon after being introduced, Mr Muradzikwa said it will not be business as usual as the company has to introduce new ways and methods of administration, including discipline if it is to survive.“We have to change as a condition for survival,’ he said.“ZBC has to set its position as the country’s number one. We want the nation to get the best from it,” he added.

Acting Information Minister Paul Mangwana told the Herald that Muradzikwa will be heading two of the ZBH subsidiary companies responsible for television and radio services, merging the cash-strapped company into two.

Muradzikwa did his high school at St Augustine Mission in Penhalonga). He holds a Degree in Political Science and Sociology from the American University in Cairo (Egypt) and a Diploma in Journalism from the London School of Journalism in Britain.

He also holds a Master of Philosophy degree from the University of Kent in Britain.

Muradzikwa was appointed assistant editor of The Herald in September 1982 a post he held until 1984 when he moved to The Sunday Mail in 1985 in the same capacity.

He was then appointed editor after the retirement of Sunday Mail editor the late Willie Musarurwa.Muradzikwa, who succeeded Musarurwa at the Sunday Mail, was removed from his job over a story which claimed that 60 Zimbabwean students had been deported from Cuba for unspecified ‘health reasons’, which many associated with AIDS or some STD.

He was ‘promoted’ to Assistant General Manager (Projects) in the group in 1987. In January 1991, Muradzikwa was appointed editor-in-chief of Ziana, a position he held until 2001 when he was fired by the then Minister Of Information Professor Jonathan Moyo.

Before his appointment at ZBH, Muradzikwa had been lecturing at the University of Zimbabwe.

Former Daily News Editor and ZIANA Reporter, Sandra Nyaira descirbes Muradzikwa as a “very nice person , a very hard-working person.... He let us do our stories. There was no censorship, nothing like that. ”who did not interfere with his staff’s work, raising the ire of Professor Moyo.” Said Nyaira in a 2002 Q and A with International Women’s Media Forum when she received an award for Courage In Journalism in the USA.

Well guys we will just have to wait and see, what Muradzikwa will do for Us at Pockets Hill.