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Zimbabwe's vice president Kembo Mohadi has urged the media to give equal coverage to all political parties, a few days after the southern African country's media coverage was slammed for bias reporting.
In an interview with News24 this week, renowned documentary maker Hopewell Chin'ono criticised the state of the media in the southern African country ahead of elections on July 30.
Chin'ono said that both the private and state-owned media in Zimbabwe were failing to play their roles as they seemed obligated to take sides in their coverage.
"The problem is not only within the state-owned media - it's on both sides. They both feel obligated to pick a side in how they are reporting. They simple do not understand the tenets of fair reporting, they lack impartiality. It will take time before the media is able to deliver on its mandate," said Chin’ono.
According to the state-owned Herald newspaper, Mohadi said the media must give equal coverage to all political parties.
Mohadi said some political parties were likely going to use lack of media coverage as an excuse for their losses in the coming polls.
He urged the state-owned media to give the country's opposition parties the same media coverage as the ruling Zanu-PF party.
"There are some parties that are complaining that the media isn't giving them coverage, which isn't right. The media must give all parties a platform to sell their manifestos to the people so that when they lose they don't give excuses that they lost because they didn't have coverage.
"There are more than 100 political parties that are registered and the media has to ensure that they give them all equal coverage," Mohadi was quoted as saying.
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