SECTOR 4 4.1 The standard of reporting follows the basic principles of accuracy and fairness Generally, the media tries to be fair. There are now fewer cases of people complaining about unethical reporting, and fewer cases of people taking the media to court in order to seek recourse. In terms of fairness, reporters are urged to write balanced stories and get comments from more than one source. However, there continue to be mistakes and inaccuracies, and there are occasions when an apology has to be printed. Empirical evidence has pointed to a decline in journalism standards in Zimbabwe. An example is the Information and Media Panel of Inquiry (IMPI), a report which was compiled by media house editors in 2015, and which exposed some unethical practices. Online stories are often inaccurate, and this is even transferred to the print media, some of whom – in a rush to meet deadlines – simply pull stories from the internet and print them, without checking the content and the sources first. There are also trends whereby unnamed sources are quoted, a whole story is built around a single tweet, or unreliable sources (such as Wikipedia) are used. Online blogs now also have great impact, sometimes reaching a wider readership than traditional media platforms. Fairness in the coverage of minority voices is needed. When dealing with those with disabilities, for example. journalists continue to ask basic (but intrusive) questions about a person’s condition, whereas these are often complex medical issues that are difficult for a lay person to understand. MISA Zimbabwe, amongst others, is doing good work in terms of training journalists to be professional and principled. ZimFact, a fact checking organisation, releases regular reports, but media houses seem to make limited use of them. 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: Score of previous years: 38 AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER ZIMBABWE 2020 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 2.9 2006: 2.3; 2008: 2.1; 2010: 2; 2012: 2.4; 2015: 2.5 ✓