Daily News set to publish within weeks

By Lance Guma

The editor of the previously banned Daily News newspaper has told SW Radio Africa that the paper will publish its first edition within the next few weeks. The paper was given a licence at the end of May this year but John Gambanga said the delay in launching the paper was due to various issues, that included the refurbishment of their printing press and the need to recruit top quality journalists.

“When the licence was issued we discovered that our printing press needed a lot of refurbishment. So we have contracted technicians from Sweden, where we bought the printing press, and they are still working on the machine now. But I can say emphatically that the refurbishment has gone on about 95 percent and we are almost there,” Gambanga told us.

The Daily News was bombed twice, first in 2000 and then 2001. A powerful bomb exploded at an art gallery on the ground floor of the newspaper’s offices in the city centre before a second bomb caused extensive damage to the Z$100 million printing press, in a building on the outskirts of Harare. Eventually the Mugabe regime banned the paper in 2003 using repressive media legislation.

But at the end of May the Zimbabwe Media Commission announced that the Daily News, along with three other daily newspapers and one weekly, would be licenced within a week. Other papers included The Mail (ZANU PF’s youth organisation, Footlink Ventures), Newsday (Alpha Media), the Daily Gazette (Modus Media) and The Worker, a weekly publication of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions.

Gambanga told us another reason for their delay in publishing was to allow them to recruit the right people. “We are very cautious on whom we hire, once beaten twice shy, so we learnt a lot from the past. So we are not hiring anybody, we are being careful whom we hire so that we are not infiltrated by moles, as has happened in the past.” This policy he said applied to all departments of the paper.

Asked if there would be too many papers for such a small the market Gambanga agreed, saying the Zimbabwean economy was not doing well; “So in terms of advertising the situation is going to be stiff, but I think we will emerge victorious. We are a brand name and once we hit the streets we intend to pick up from where we left.”

Given the repressive media landscape is he not worried about journalists being too careful what they write? ‘We don’t want reporters who engage in self-censorship. We are not hiring that kind of team. We are putting together a team that will abide by our motto of ‘telling it like it is.’

Meanwhile the Media Institute of Southern Africa has announced that Zimbabwean journalist Hopewell Chin’ono has been nominated for a prestigious Rory Peck award, honouring freelance camerawork in news or current affairs.

‘Chin’ono’s film, A Violent Response, which depicts Zimbabwe’s violent land reform programme, was selected as a finalist together with three other films on 29 September 2010 by a panel of news professionals, both executive and freelance. The nominees will be travelling to London in November for the awards ceremony,’ MISA said.

The Rory Peck Trust supports freelance news gatherers and their families worldwide in times of need and promotes their welfare and safety.