Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe filed a complaint with the Media Complaints Committee over a story carried by NewZimbabwe.com on 25 December 2014 headlined “Grace blamed for Kombi rank short dress outrage”.
The Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe in its complaint and initial engagement with the editor of the online site indicated that none of their Board members made the statement anonymously attributed to them in the article. WCoZ also wants the identity of the reporter who wrote the story to be revealed.
In a related complaint, journalist Robert Tapfumaneyi also approached the VMCZ over the same matter. Mr. Tapfumaneyi wants the VMCZ to stop WCoZ Board Members from calling him and accusing him of authoring the story. Mr. Tapfumaneyi wants to clear his name as he alleges that he is not the author of the story in question.
STATUS: PENDING
NewZimbabwe.com Editor Gilbert Nyambabvu in his response indicated that Mr. Tapfumaneyi is not the author of the article and that it was not possible to reveal the identity of the reporter as requested by WCoZ due to security risks. Mr. Nyambabvu also argues that the WCoZ Board Member anonymously quoted in the article did so in her capacity as a private individual and not on behalf of the organisation and there was therefore no need to reveal her name. He also cited security risks associated with identifying her, given the profiles of the actors mentioned in the news article.
The Media Complaints Committee is currently assessing the response from NewZimbabwe.com.
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