Emmanuel Chitsika
Media practitioners in Masvingo have been called upon to realise the key role media plays in either building or destroying society and thus should play their roles to ensure they immensely contribute to positive and sustainable peace as the nation gears towards 2023 harmonised elections.
Addressing journalists from various media houses in Masvingo on April 13 at Flamboyant Hotel, Research and Advocacy Unit (RAU) researcher Lloyd Pswarayi said the media has a key role to play towards a peaceful and inclusive society that incorporates interests of women who are usually victims of politically-motivated violence.
“The oversight role played by media is thus crucial. There is need for media to report specifically on certain issues that are usually shunned by mainstream media. This workshop seeks to equip journalists with knowledge on reporting on human rights violations with specific focus on organised violence and torture an area which is lacking in information dissemination. The training seeks to help reporters to be able to flag up such issues in society and package the news for policing with policy makers.
“The participation of women and youth in political processes is very limited in most cases, the reason being violence limiting the participation of these groups of people. Whether it is gender-based violence or political, it all cascades around these issues of violence. Violence is very rife in almost all political parties. The political space is not gendered. During the recently-held by-elections, a very few women contested as candidates. Youth is also used during elections and after that they are dumped by political parties,” said Pswarayi.
He also said media should pay particular attention to major political events.
“There is need for the media to zero-in on human rights reporting because it is important to focus on issues that take place around key political events and processes like elections and other national commemorations,” he added.
Also presenting during the discussion Shastry Njeru said there have been incidences in which journalists turn blind eye to cases involving human rights violations.
“Why are so much worried about these violations of human rights? We are worried because we have been seeing a lot of human rights violations taking place across the country and journalists sometimes turn a blind eye towards such. It seems as if they employ the ‘Hear nothing, See nothing and Say nothing’. Just last month during the March 26 by-elections, a lot of violence took place which journalists did not document and we feel that there is real need to transform media and or help the media turn around that kind of reporting.
“I feel we still have time for the turn around because we have elections coming up in 2023, this year we have Independence and Heroes holidays. How easy it is for media to report about soccer, reporting it well and how difficult it is to report about violations of rights. The reasons are that sometimes we lack background knowledge of what are human rights and what is peace. As journalists it is critical for you to just have a general understanding of what are human rights and what is in the constitution about human rights. That will help reporters to report factually and maintain balance in stories,” said Njeru.
Great Zimbabwe University (GZU) Sociology and Social Anthropology lecturer Jocelyn Chitotombe urged journalists to ensure media play a part in promoting peace.
“We are looking into how we can promote peaceful and inclusive society for sustainable development, provision of access to justice for all and building accountable institutions at all levels and I think that should be a pre-requisite when it comes to media reporting.
“Human rights are a subject that is critical when it comes to generating news reports. The power of the pen and access to various platforms, ability to influence societies, it is our hope that this will help go a long way as far as sustainable peace is concerned,” said Chitotombe.
The human rights issue has been one of the most controversial topics in Zimbabwe especially during election periods when political violence becomes more prevalent with government on a number of occasions accused of straying from the constitutional requirements in pursuit of power consolidation.
