
Miriam Tose Majome
THERE are 182 mass media services registered in Zimbabwe, the majority of which are in print journalism, comprising publications such as newspapers, magazines and trade journals.
The law requires mass media services to register with the Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC).
Presently, registration is provisionally set out under Statutory Instrument 69C of 2002, pending passing of the Media Practitioners Act, which is under development.
The commission is mandated by law to ensure that people have fair and wide access to information.
ZMC, therefore, strongly encourages and facilitates the establishment of media services.
Unfortunately, less than half of the registered media services are currently operating.
Sadly, many will never start operating, while some that are operating will most definitely fail, if they do not evolve as demanded by technological and operational challenges in the sector.
The operating environment in Zimbabwe is extremely difficult for the media due to the lack of resources required to develop the industry. However, these challenges go well beyond our borders and present circumstances.
Globally, the print media has been under threat, with the dawn of the internet.
The heightened environment conservation awareness lobby to reduce or even eliminate the use of paper also adds to the pressures.
The internet permanently disrupted the print industry.
This evolution continues to spawn even more complex and complicated challenges for an industry that is reeling from dwindling readers and advertisers.
These challenges are exacerbated by technological changes in printing design and technology, which has seen newspaper companies playing catch up to remain relevant.
Before the internet, newspaper and magazine companies had printing presses or contracted them, and they ran at full throttle, occupying massive industrial spaces and employing thousands of people.
But all that is now history.
Traditional printing presses, like the skills that were required to run them, have become obsolete, save for a
few.
A task that required tens of skilled workers to perform can now be done by just one person or a machine.
The future of traditional newspapers, and traditional printing and publishing is at stake.
This is why the ZMC is tasked with encouraging the adoption of new technology in the media and dissemination of information.
Resources permitting, the commission should be at the forefront of such an initiative and doing more to support small and technologically challenged publications, especially community newspapers.
Newspapers are finding that publishing electronically or having an online presence will not carry the day.
An online publication needs to do more with its online presence than just publish news and sell advertising space.
There are thousands of other publications that do the same, so competition for online advertisers and readers is cut-throat.
Many online publications are closing as a result of depending on their online presence alone.
Advertising has been the mainstay of newspapers in terms of revenue and profits, when you compare it to newspaper sales.
When newspapers went online, advertisers loyally followed because readers and potential customers had also followed the news there.
For a while, many newspapers published profitably online, but technology and the internet are never static.
The internet is evolving and expanding into other terrain like the social media and mobile applications.
Advertisers are finding newer, better and more platforms, and are gradually abandoning print and online newspapers as readership declines.
In the Digital Age, newspaper publishers need to continually experiment with survival strategies because things are always changing.
One of the most common strategies is to monetise the news by selling it.
Monetising news entails paying to access and read newspaper content.
A few local newspapers have tried it and are still trying it, but it needs no genius to tell that it is a doomed venture, not just in Zimbabwe, but elsewhere in the world as well.
News is just not that kind of product.
Miriam Tose Majome is a commissioner with the Zimbabwe Media Commission.