By Staff Reporter
HARARE — The Media Alliance of Zimbabwe (MAZ) has backed the Zimbabwe Media Commission’s (ZMC) warning that journalists who demand money or fuel in exchange for coverage risk destroying public trust.
However, MAZ cautioned that expecting impeccable ethics from poorly paid journalists without fixing their working conditions is a pipe dream.
In an exclusive interview MAZ coordinator Nigel Nyamutumbu said journalists should never trade editorial decisions for personal gain, but argued that the industry’s chronic low wages, delayed payments and precarious freelance work were creating conditions that leave journalists struggling to meet basic costs of doing their jobs.
“Journalism is not for sale and credibility depends on editorial independence.
“Journalists who demand money or fuel for coverage erode public trust,” Nyamutumbu said.
“Poor pay does not justify unethical conduct, but it creates conditions that make journalists vulnerable.
“You cannot criminalise the symptom without curing the disease,” added Nyamutumbu.
The comments came after the ZMC warned journalists and media practitioners against soliciting money, fuel, allowances or other benefits in exchange for covering events, publishing favourable stories, suppressing information or withholding adverse coverage.
Nyamutumbu said ethical standards must apply regardless of how much journalists earn, noting that thousands of practitioners maintain professional standards despite difficult working conditions.
“However, expecting pristine ethics from a starving profession while doing nothing about the starvation is hypocrisy,” he said.
He said the responsibility for resourcing journalists primarily rested with media organisations that assign them to cover stories.
“If you assign a journalist, you must resource them,” Nyamutumbu said.
He drew a distinction between legitimate facilitation that enables journalists to do their work and payments intended to influence editorial decisions.
An event organiser, for example, could provide pooled transport for journalists travelling to a remote location, provided the arrangement was transparent to the journalist’s editor and was not offered in exchange for favourable coverage.m
“The line is clear: is it enabling you to work, or paying you to cover in a certain way?” he said.
Nyamutumbu said cash, fuel vouchers for personal use and direct payments from news sources should be governed by institutional policies to prevent conflicts of interest.
His comments expose a difficult fault line in the debate over journalistic ethics that while journalists remain responsible for maintaining professional standards, media organisations cannot expect them to absorb the costs of reporting while paying them poorly or inconsistently.
“Media houses can do more,” Nyamutumbu said, accusing the industry of normalising “precarious labour, late pay and piece-rates that have not moved with inflation.”
He said Zimbabwe needed to tackle journalists’ working conditions alongside professional ethics, proposing what he called a “double charter” comprising an Ethical Charter and a Decent Work Charter.
The proposed framework would include minimum pay scales, timely payment for freelancers, a Media Sustainability Fund and lower costs for data and other tools required by journalists.
Nyamutumbu also called on the ZMC to look beyond monitoring professional conduct and examine labour practices within media organisations.
“The Commission should support efforts by the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ) for the establishment of a National Employment Council (NEC) for journalists,” he said.
The debate over payments for coverage comes as journalists increasingly rely on freelance and piece-rate work, making the question of who pays for the cost of reporting central to the industry’s struggle to maintain editorial independence.
Nyamutumbu said the answer could not simply be to punish journalists who breach ethical standards while leaving the economic pressures facing the profession untouched.
“If we want journalism that is not for sale, we must ensure those who produce it are paid,” he said.