Media and Journalism expert and AB Communications Chief Executive Officer Susan Makore has come out guns blazing against what she described as sex predators in media work places calling for stern measures to be taken to protect young journalists.
Speaking at the late veteran journalist Bornwell Chakaodza’s Memorial Lecture Series in the capital today, Makore said sexual harassment has gone a notch higher in the media space and measures have to be put in place to protect young media practitioners especially interns.
Makore said the media reforms agenda must not leave issues to do with the protection of young journalists from sexual monsters who take advantage of their positions in the media industry.
“We must also bring on board issues of sexual harassment and how to address them in an amicable way within the newsrooms without instilling fear. It’s a fact that the majority of those affected are women. The problem I have now is that our newsrooms are becoming scary especially for young graduates.
“When some of them come for attachment they will never want to come back because there are predators in our newsrooms. So within this media reforms agenda we also need to look at it as a sector to make sure that our newsrooms are safe to work in,” she said.
Makore added that investigations have to be carried out extensively as soon as complains are made in a manner which does not further victimize those injured.
“So the call is real to ensure that within our organizations we have robust measures to deal with these allegations of sexual harassment so that we don’t shy away from them, we investigate them and we have mechanisms to protect those that actual raised complains against senior reporters and editors,” she said.
Meanwhile, speaking at the same event, as panelists of the day veteran journalists Geoffrey Nyarota and Nevanji Madanhire called for the government to free up the media environment while calling for journalists to up their game in factual reporting.
Nyarota bemoaned sensationalism and false reporting that has often characterized mainstream media in its bid to pace up with the social media platforms.
