Financial news service in Zimbabwe

Maastricht - October 17, 2011

The European Journalism Centre and the Thomson Reuters Foundation on 26 September officially launched a five-year Dutch Foreign Ministry funded programme to establish a financial news service in Zimbabwe.

The programme kick-off event, hosted in the capital Harare by the Dutch Ambassador H.M.B.  Joziasse, was timed to coincide with an intensive ten day business news reporting training for 30 hopeful future Zimbabwean stringers for the news service, led by veteran Thomson Reuters trainer Nick Kotch.

“The Source”, registered temporarily as a trust on its way to local incorporation, will be the first financial news service of its kind in the country. It will be dedicated exclusively to providing accurate and informed business news and analysis regularly, and thus will potentially play a pivotal role in the overall future economic development of the country.

The news service’s founding principles and structure will safeguard its impartiality and independence. Skills training and mentoring to Thomson Reuters standards will ensure its competence and a sound business model will help it become self-financing.

The primary goal of the programme is that The Source will be a news service owned and operated by Zimbabweans, serving Zimbabwean media organisations, financial organisations, and their fellow citizens and provide trusted information that will also be of value to potential foreign investors.

“Our ambition is to help create an independent, accurate and timely economic news service for Zimbabwe with integrity as its watchword,” said Nick Kotch of the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The project is funded through the MFSII Programme of the Dutch Foreign Ministry in the Hague.  It is part of a much broader global project entitled Press Freedom 2.0 that includes other Netherlands-based media partners such as World Press Photo, People on a Mission, Free Press Unlimited and European Partnership for Democracy, working in 13 countries on five continents. 

“My hope is that the tools and methods of best practice financial journalism - so important in any developmental context yet often overlooked - can be shared at the global level,” says EJC Zimbabwe country manager Josh LaPorte, “so that other countries struggling with media ethics and professionalism can learn from the Zimbabwean experience”.

Posted on October 17, 2011 by EJC
Filed under announcements.