By Daniel Itai.
Harare, Zimbabwe. (News of The South) – The current Coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic has taken a huge economic toll on some members of the media fraternity in Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe’s industrial sector is mostly informal which includes members of the country’s media realm with most journalists being freelancers.
As a result of the COVID-19 epidemic and the country’s lockdown rules hundreds of freelancers have been left hopeless as they are not able to acquire viable content accordingly.
A number of freelance journalists have been harassed by the police and army regardless of them being in possession of the right credentials that enable them to do their job and also being part of the essential service as gazetted by the government in line with the country’s lockdown regulations.
Tongai Mwenje, who is the editor of online sports magazine Sportbrief indicated that the lockdown is having a huge financial toll on journalists in the country.
“The whole world is on standstill, nothing is happening, in fact nothing is functioning besides responding to COVID-19 cases.
All news platforms are focused on COVID-19, it’s either you are reporting on the virus or you are not reporting anything.
Sports activities have either been suspended for this year or postponed to a date no one knows. Traditional media outlets like print have been hit harder, forced to go digital.
For News publications to survive, it takes creativity these days to attract readership, and remember people are at home where most depend on personal resources to access news via the internet unlike when they are at work where internet is accessed for free.
If successfully achieved, the lockdown will no doubt create a mirage of problems in terms of business, relationships, social and even spiritual.
To say the government can do something to help us during this time, that would be a day dream.
If it were another country obviously I would expect the government to assist us financially during this critical period,” said Mwenje.
Already a lot of media entities around the world have hinted on employees’ pay cuts or worse. In South Africa weekly newspaper, Mail & Guardian as well as Independent Media group which runs newspapers such as The Star, Pretoria News and Sunday Independent amongst others announced that their employees will be taking a pay cut due to the economic tolls which are being caused by COVID-19.
Vivian Marara-Zhangazha the director of Zimbabwe Association of Community Radio Stations (ZACRAS) said employers and employees will have to reach an amicable solution in this COVID-19 crisis.
“Covid-19 and the accompanying drastic measures adopted by different governments to try and contain the virus and prevent further transmission are unprecedented.
I do not think that a one size fits all solution will be the way to go in seeking to address job security issues for media employees across sectors. I believe that this a time for individual media entities to have honest conversations with their employees which will culminate in solutions beneficial to both the employer and the employee,” said the director of ZACRAS.
Young Journalists Association (YOJA) spokesperson Leopold Munhende echoed the same sentiment as the ZACRAS director, “employers should have a dialogue before cutting off journalists financially. We are also encouraging our members to stay at home and take precautionary measures against COVID-19.”
Some global economic experts have predicted that Africa is set to lose 20 million jobs post the COVID-19 epidemic.
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