DEPUTY Chief Secretary for Presidential Communications in the Office of the President and Cabinet, Mr George Charamba, has reiterated calls for public funding of Zimbabwean journalism, maintaining that the profession is a public good.
Writing on his official X account, Mr Charamba said there are many ways the media can get public funding from the State and through tax concessions as is happening in other jurisdictions, to ensure plurality and protection of fringe publications.
He said his long-time calls for public funding of journalism had faced pushback, with some accusing him of seeking to corrupt and control the country’s media space.
“In many jurisdictions, the media get public funding in many ways: direct funding by the State – not Government! – or, indirect funding through numerous tax concessions especially around inputs into their production processes.
“More sophisticated jurisdictions give ‘bottom-up’ support, which is to say greater support is extended to smaller, struggling fringe publications to ensure plurality of voices,” Mr Charamba posted.
He said while Nordic countries are some of the examples where State support is provided, in Zimbabwe support towards journalism has been slandered by people who have sought to define a free press as one funded by foreign governments through pseudo non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
For over two decades, sections of the Zimbabwean media and civil society organisations received external grants from organisations like the United States’ National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and USAID to influence the narrative in favour of foreign interests advancing a regime change agenda in Zimbabwe.
Mr Charamba added: “Here State support faces aspersions from the same media and readers who think funding from foreign governments channelled through pseudo-NGOs or institutions like USAID – when it lasted – is the shibboleth of free press/media in the sense of an institution insulated from the State.
“You would think they don’t know which State(s) is/are behind their (N)GO benefactors! It is an ignorant view of the political economy of the communication industry. Completely illiterate and duplicitous.”
According to Mr Charamba, the binary between so-called private media and Government media was deliberately deployed to imply both quality and probity, a false dichotomy that has created a riven and polarised media environment in Zimbabwe.
“Meanwhile not once did any of the so-called private media turn down advertorials from the State, which amount to 60 percent of media proceeds in any jurisdiction worldwide,” he said.
He added that now, in the absence of foreign media funding, journalists, trade unionists, managers and proprietors have now woken up to what in the West is a truism.
“Journalism is a public good which can and should be publicly funded!”
