Following the Voluntary Media Council of Zimbabwe (VMCZ) Board Meeting on 05, July 2013, the VMCZ Media Ethics Committee has been mandated by the board to produce a Weekly Media Ethics Analysis Column.
The Weekly Ethics Analysis Column will be produced every Monday of the week, starting on 22, July 2013.
The launch of the Media Ethics Analysis Column follows the conclusion of in-house trainings conducted by VMCZ on Back to Basics, Conflict Sensitive Reporting and Election Reporting courses that were conducted for the main media houses in the country since April last year.
The Media Ethics Analysis Column will for the next four weeks analyse the professionalism of newspapers in their coverage of the harmonised elections in Zimbabwe. In analysing the work of the media during this period, the Media Ethics Committee will be guided by the VMCZ Code of Code for Zimbabwean Journalists that was endorsed and approved by the media in Zimbabwe. To be specific, sections 10 and 11 of the VMCZ Code of Conduct will be used. These sections state as follows:
Section-10. Hatred or violence
a) Media practitioners and media institutions must not publish material that is intended or is likely to engender hostility or hatred towards persons on the grounds of their race, ethnic origin, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, physical disability, religion or political affiliation.
b) Media institutions must take utmost care to avoid contributing to the spread of ethnic hatred or political violence.
Section 11. Reporting of elections
a) Media practitioners and media institutions must report on elections in a fair and balanced manner.
b) Before reporting a damaging allegation made against a candidate or a political party, a media practitioner should obtain, wherever possible, a comment from the candidate or party against whom the allegation has been made especially where the allegation has been made by an opposing candidate or an opposing political party.
c) A media practitioner or media institution must not accept any gift, reward or inducement from a politician or candidate.
d) As far as possible, a media practitioner or media institution should report the views of candidates and political parties directly and in their own words, rather than as they are described by others.
e) A journalist must take care in reporting the findings of opinion polls. Any report should wherever possible include details about the methodology used in conducting the survey and by whom it was conducted. Freedom of expression, including the constitutional right to receive and impart information, is a pre-requisite for free and fair democratic elections in any country. In order to enable citizens to make informed democratic choices and decisions, journalists have a responsibility to provide accurate and balanced information to the public during the election period.
The VMCZ Media Ethics committee will assess and analyse that stories written within this period are accurate, fair, truthful and balanced.
If any of our members are not happy with any story published by any media in Zimbabwe they are free to lodge a complaint with the VMCZ Media Complaints Committee.
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