VMCZ attends Advertising and Publicity Media expo

The Voluntary Media Council of Zimbabwe (VMCZ) last week on Thursday was invited to make a presentation at the media expo hosted by the Advertising and Publicity club at Chapman Golf club in Harare. VMCZ programs officer, Mr Loughty Dube highlighted to participants at the meeting the VMCZ Media Complaints mechanism.

In his sp…eech, Mr Dube encouraged the participants to utilize the Media Complaints mechanism and they should report bad stories to the media complaints committee.

“The VMCZ was set up by media practioners to monitor the operations of the media and ensure that journalists adhere to ethical codes of ethics , the operations of the Media Complaints Committee are guided by the code of conduct for Zimbabwe media practioners. I therefore urge you to utilize this platform”, said Dube.

Dube went on to list the benefits of media self regulation and said the VMCZ self regulatory mechanism is cheap as they are no costs involved in the adjudication process and that the organization offers speedy resolution of complaints.

“The complaints that come through the VMCZ usually take one to two weeks to resolve whereas court cases take a long time to be resolved and requires the complainant to spend a lot of money in engaging lawyers”.

Dube in his presentation also touched on what violates the Code of conduct and said journalists should strive to be professional in the execution of their duties.

He said were a story has breached the code of conduct, the newspaper or media house should publish a retraction or an apology in its next edition. He also emphasized that an apology should have the same prominence as the offending story.

Dube however said a lot still needs to be done in raising awareness on the VMCZ self regulation mechanism as the organization is currently receiving very few complaints from members of the public.

“On average the organization receives five complaints per three months which is not much, and a lot still needs to be done so as to raise public awareness of the Media Complaints mechanism”, said Dube.