WEEKLY REPORT

Focus of the week

A case against licensing of journalists

Journalists and the public in Zimbabwe have expressed serious concerns around the passing of the Access to Information and Privacy Bill, that among other things seeks to regulate journalism profession by means of licensing.

The Zimbabwean people’s protest is clearly understood as their government means of encroaching onto their constitutional right, that of freedom to express themselves.

Zimbabwe is however not the only country to attempt to encroach on this fundamental human right. Many countries such as Malawi, Uganda, Kenya, Zambia have had media practitioners being regulated for years. The Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) has also proposed a protocol where journalists who practice in the region will be required to be licensed and registered.

This means that for someone to practice, as a journalist one has to obtain a license from the Minister responsible for media and also be registered by a government body. The rationale being that when these people fail to conduct themselves in a way that the government perceive to be ethical their licenses will be withdrawn and they will not be able to practice again or they could be punished in other ways.

Journalists would be given a license to practice provided they have qualifications that the government stipulates. In many instances this include tertiary qualifications in the journalism field.

However, unlike the regulation of doctors, teachers, lawyers and several other professions, journalism is a different profession that deals with a vital resource, (information) and is also deeply routed in one of the fundamental human rights the freedom for one to express his or herself. It is for that reason that there is a strong case against licensing of journalists.

Journalism like the rest of the professions demands that its practitioners exercise some level of ethics for people to trust and respect it. The journalism such as ethics accuracy, fairness or balanced reporting and several others are critical to journalism as a profession. An inaccurate journalist whose stories are one sided may be more dangerous to the society he serves than the evil of denying people information.

Often journalists have crossed the line either by design or by mistake. At times institution from which they seek information because they simply refuse to cooperate forcing journalists to speculate bears the blame.

The question though is what to do when journalists fail to be accurate or when their reports appear one-sided. A solution to this will be at two levels. Firstly many newspapers usually carry a section where readers have the right to reply or to correct information.

Media diversity could also serve as a solution to this problem, where different newspapers or media may correct each other.

As already argued in the earlier paragraphs, journalism is a different profession from say motor mechanics or medicine. Firstly it deal with a tool that is important to everyone (information). Secondly journalism is a means of expression one’s self and freedom of expression is a one of the fundamental human rights that many constitutions of the world jealously protect.

Because journalism serve as means of expressing one’s self it will impossible to regulate it without interfering with the practitioner’s freedom to expression him or herself. To cancel a license for someone to practice, as a journalist will amount to censorship and denial of one’s right to express him or herself.

Thirdly media in which journalism is practiced is one of the platforms but important platform through which people express themselves so in actual fact media is not only for journalists. Doctors, teachers, nurses, peasant and several other people who want to express themselves can use media.

In order to allow different views and give people the right to express themselves together with the right to be heard, as a fundamental human right media becomes a critical place. It is for this reason that the limitation on who can participate in media, using education and training as an impediment is highly controversial.

If licensing as it has been done in Zimbabwe, Malawi, Uganda, Kenya and other countries is based on the level of education or whether people are trained as journalists or not, then the move is bound to violate particular people’s rights.

If information, views and opinions of only the educated and the trained are allowed to come out in newspapers, on radio and television then it will mean that the uneducated and the untrained will be denied their right to express themselves through those mediums.

The Diary

Media Development and Diversity Bill tabled

This week the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) welcomes the public release of the Media Development and Diversity Agency Bill. According to FXI’s Executive Director Jane Duncan “the FXI has supported the establishment of the MDDA since the idea was mooted by the task team on Government Communications, COMTASK, in 1996. The Institute believes that the Agency is necessary to increase media access and broaden media ownership to the most marginalised sectors of South African society. In doing so, more South Africans will be able to take ownership of the right to freedom of expression as articulated in the constitution, namely the right to receive or impart information or ideas, rather than being a right practiced mainly by existing media owners.”

Duncan added, “the FXI intends to study the Bill and comment publicly in greater depth. However, from a preliminary analysis of the Bill, the FXI does not believe that - as presently proposed - the MDDA will be independent from government, allowing it to `...exercise its powers and perform its duties without fear, favour or prejudice, and without any political or commercial interference”.

While media organisations also largely welcome the move they have also expressed concerns about the independent of a government body in advancing media deversity.

Government want photographers arrested

The FXI also condemns the government’s continual harassment of Cape Town photographers Christo Lotter of Die Burger and Benny Gool. Government has renewed its 1996 subpoenas forcing the two photographers to verify their pictures in court in the murder trial of Hard Living Gang leader Rushaad Staggies.

The journalists have since refused on two counts, that of personal security since seven witnesses in government protection programmes has already been killed. They also refused to testify on for professional reasons. The government now demands that the two journalists must be arrested if they continue to refuse to follow the subpoenas the Star newspaper reported.

Zimbabwean Journalists

In Zimbabwe journalists continue to be harassed as the government tries to insure victory in the next presidential election in March this year.

The latest incident of harassment was the summarily arrest of the secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists Basildson Peta, who was kept in cells overnight and release the following day after charges against him were dropped the Daily newspaper reported.

Peta is a Special Projects Editor with Zimbabwe’s weekly newspaper the Financial Gazette and also a correspondent for Independent Newspapers in South Africa.