SECTOR 2 “We had a story once on the front page about Harare’s water being contaminated. Many people didn’t want to read the paper, and we had 28% returns.” One panellist noted that politics usually take up pages 1 to 3 of the newspapers, development issues take up pages 4 to 7, and then other stories make up the rest of the paper. “Regardless of the commercial aspect, social stories have the higher number, but prominence is given to politics and business…the economy.” Investigative journalism is seriously lacking. “There is no investigative journalism in Zimbabwe. What Zimbabwe claims is investigative, are documents issued by public bodies.” Where investigative journalism is attempted. “it’s a onceoff case”. Panellists noted that greater focus should be placed on investigative journalism by media houses, journalists, and media training institutions. Scores: Individual scores: 1 Country does not meet indicator 2 Country meets only a few aspects of indicator 3 Country meets some aspects of indicator 4 Country meets most aspects of indicator 5 Country meets all aspects of the indicator Average score: 2.7 (2012 = 3.1; 2010 = 2.6; 2008 = 2.5; 2006 = 1.8) 2.10 Private broadcasters deliver a minimum of quality public interest programmes. Because there are no local private television broadcasters, the discussion on this indicator centered on private radio stations. According to the Broadcasting Services Act, all broadcasters have a mandate to provide sufficient coverage on issues of national interest. The regulator also has a template on how these issues can be covered, with quotas on local languages and types of programmes. Meeting these quotas is “still a work in progress” for most radio stations as they are “trying to find a balance”. Many broadcasters, for example, face difficulties in finding people who can do programmes in other languages. 36 AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER ZIMBABWE 2015