SECTOR 4 The media practise high levels of professional standards. 4.1 The standard of reporting follows the basic principles of accuracy and fairness. Improvements in the standard of reporting are desperately needed, with problems in accuracy and fairness being primarily due to the high level of political polarisation in the media. “It is difficult to get a true picture of what is happening. You find that you get three or four different versions of what transpired at one event from the media; and you need to read all the papers and decide what you think is the true picture. It’s like you get extremes, and then you have to balance it all for yourself.” The level of accuracy and fairness in a report also depends on what is being reported about, and journalists are more consistent across the board when it comes to budget numbers and so forth. “On politically neutral issues there’s more balance. But on issues with a political flavour, we must appreciate that the media is polarised and it depends on the media house and editorial policy. It all has to do with polarisation.” Issues regarding accuracy are visible from the high number of corrections and retractions that take place. “The media don’t verify their facts.” “The system of reporting is not as thorough as it should be.” Panellists noted the large number of stories with spelling mistakes, mistakes in people’s names, titles, or on figures, “unnamed sources” or only one source, “anonymous experts”, and with the by-line “staff reporter”. “To what extent are reporters held liable to verify their sources?” “Our journalists don’t research. They don’t read. And it is not unusual to even find the names of ministries stated incorrectly.” “You find a lot of desktop journalists. If you read twitter, you’ll find what the next day’s headlines will be, and the sources of those stories are sometimes those very tweets.” The issue of sensationalism is also prevalent, with many media outlets moving “from quality news to tabloid-type reporting” where “everything has to be dramatised. “You find misleading headlines (meant to shock readers), but once you read the story, you see that the headline and the content are totally different.” 52 AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER ZIMBABWE 2015