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| Nick Mangwana addresses members of the subcommittee |
Upenyu Chaota
Government has called
for balanced reporting on Covid-19, saying the media needed to give a moderated
picture of the challenges at hand by highlighting both the negatives and the
gains being made.
Speaking with members
of a the Masvingo Covid-19 Taskforce’s Risk Communication Subcommittee on
Saturday, August 08, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services, Nick Mangwana said the media should use their
influence to warn the public without panicking them.
He spoke in the wake of
a steady rise of both new coronavirus cases and recovery cases in the country.
“For anybody to achieve
whatever they want to achieve, they need hope. Let the media spread the message
of hope without appearing to be downplaying the dangers of the pandemic. If you overemphasize
the ominous messages, you then have a society in panic, and if you focus only
on the recoveries being recorded, people become negligent thinking that the virus does not kill. It should therefore be about striking a logical
balance,” said Managwana.
As on August 08, the
country had recorded a cumulative number of 4 575 confirmed cases of coronavirus, 1 416
recoveries and 102 deaths.
Mangwana said the fight
against the pandemic needed collective efforts, and praised the subcommittee’s non-partisan
unity of purpose in communicating risk and combating fake news with zero
budget.
The subcommittee is
chaired by Masvingo Provincial Information Officer (PIO) Rogers Irimayi and
comprises members of the local media as well as government departments.
