It is, therefore, MISA Zimbabwe’s well considered view that the ZMC-issued accreditation card
should suffice for media practitioners in Zimbabwe, working for both local and foreign media
houses, to undertake their professional work on election reporting.
Should there be a need for a separate and ZEC-specific accreditation, that accreditation should be
processed without any requests for further payments.
As the country heads for the 2023 elections, MISA Zimbabwe reiterates its earlier appeals to ZEC to
only require that media practitioners applying to be accredited by the Commission, should submit
their details based on the ZMC-issued accreditation cards without having to pay an additional
accreditation fee.
Such details can then be verified with the ZMC before the accreditation card by ZEC is issued.
Meanwhile, and as noted by Maunganidze, it is however not all about gloom and doom as
exemplified by platforms such as the Daily Maverick in South Africa which is growing despite the
challenges that media platforms face. In the UK, the Financial Times and The Guardian have grown
their online presence, and they are reaping the rewards of good journalism.
In the US, The Washington Post and New York Times also provide examples of organisations that
were making profits because they have invested in good journalism. What Southern African
newsrooms need to think about now is changing their business models, so that they are reflective
of the changing media ecosystem.

Media professionalism and regulation
Media stakeholders generally agree on co-regulation of the media, where the proposed professional
media body would be the first entry point for filing complaints against the media while the
constitutional regulatory body, Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC), would be an appellant body.
At stake though is how exactly this would unfold in enforcing a binding Code of Ethics.
MISA Zimbabwe and its alliance partners under the auspices of the Media Alliance of Zimbabwe
(MAZ) are agreed that effective co-regulation should be underpinned by a strengthened and
inclusive professional media regulatory mechanism in which there is joint enforcement of a Code
of Ethics and Conduct with the statutory body.
The industry-driven council will thus be composed mainly of media professionals, and it will also be
inclusive to represent the various platforms and forms of news media, including print, broadcast,
and online media. Both public and private media entities and practitioners will be within the
structures of this mechanism.
Under this framework, the key principles would be inclusivity, recognition for diversity, a unified
code of ethics and standards, professionalism, and media accountability.
It is, therefore, encouraging that the resolutions of the Kadoma Writeshop (mentioned earlier in
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