Content is king
Just how Zim State media, both print and broadcast fail to optimise vast resources at their disposal to produce is an abberation and national disservice that enlightens us to a number of things 1/ @AlexanderRusero @VTKAHIYA @nickmangwana @TrevorNcube @Jamwanda2
Just how Zim State media, both print and broadcast fail to optimise vast resources at their disposal to produce is an abberation and national disservice that enlightens us to a number of things 1/ @AlexanderRusero @VTKAHIYA @nickmangwana @TrevorNcube @Jamwanda2
2/ There is no worse time this has been exposed than during this Covid-19 crisis when the @ZBCNewsonline has shown us how vacuous in both material production and imagination it is, as it has churned poor quality on rotation when it has a whole family-centred market to itself...
3/ On the other hand, print media such as @HeraldZimbabwe and @SundayMailZim have remained stuck as daily and weekly publications with no effort to produce content that is alive to the new realities of a more ravenous, captive but dynamic audiences...
4/ The digital assets available to these media houses, are no more than extensions of the street paper and have not gone to produce any dynamism of content and consumption through, among others, multi story-telling, multi-platform, multi-deadlines and collaborative work...
5/This is as true to print as broadcast. For @Zimpapers, it's broadcast division lives off print like a parasite, in terms of news, while its current affairs programmes are stolid, unimaginative and often without authority to set or discuss the national agenda @StarFMNews
5/ The #Covid19Zim pandemic means that we are ill-served by national media, which is a tragedy in that it results in two phenomena: a)reliance on foreign media, especially cable TV; b)growth of the misinforming social media as a "source" of news as it fills the lacunae created..
6/ How and why are we here? This answers to the issue problematised in the opening Tweet: a phenomenological and existential issue that will need to be addressed in a holistic and profound manner concerning but not limited to:
7/ a)Structures, b) policies c)workflow & the philosophy of work and production. To explain - and remedy this - one needs to look at the calibre of managers and management; staff and production, with performance indication at the centre; as well as remuneration and reward sytems
8) The above addresses both the larger political economy of this collective known as State media, macro structure, as well as the micro-level, institutional dynamics of politics and business that govern individual companies...
9/ A micro-micro level can also be used as an analytical lens to the extent of determining how certain units within an institution such as @Zimpapers are operated, and in this case are allowed to remain mediocre or sink lower, becoming a burden on others...
10/ There are certain measures that aren't likely to work. These include recently-reconstituted Mass Media Trust as well as hiring boards & chairmen with imagined prowess. For all we know, for example, @Zimpapers will likely perform worse under a Tommy Sithole, even minus #Covid
11/ The real lies (a) in addressing the larger political economy of the State Media: how they are run, their relationship with State, audiences and businesses; the appointment of business, technical and editorial leaders as well as the autonomy that attends them...
12/ (b) Editorial managers. This is the question of the day. What models and strategies are they deploying in 2020? What've they learnt or not learnt, in particular during this crisis? The ideology of journalism itself has changed; what of production, distribution & consumption?
13/ Even how the workflow is managed has changed. Ditto, the very physical workstations and newsroom social norms. What are the short and longer term approaches to this wholly changing terrain?
14/ Lastly, what are the requirements of a new dispensation in news production? What are the skills sets, tools and competencies of a new journalist?
