Appearing before the Parliamentary portfolio committee on Information, Media and Broadcasting Services chaired by Prince Dubeko this Friday to give oral evidence on its operations, Dr Josaya Tai, the Board chair of ZBC said the corporation is in the process of rebranding.
"We are aware of the damaged brand. We are in the process of rebranding ZBC. We are working on employing a Public Relations (PR) personnel who will be in charge of managing the image of the cooperation. The transformation will take time, we are cognisant of the fact that we need to rebrand. ," he said.
He said his team is working tirelessly to revive the damaged image of the national broadcaster.
"Our motto is culture change. We are on our toes on these issues. We have discussed them thoroughly. We as a board had a tour at the Corporation to talk to the workers and all these issues about bribery were mentioned. We need time, give us time," said the ZBC board chair.
Responding to the committee's concerns about the institution's failure to comply with section 61(4) of the constitution which state that all State-owned media of communication must be free to determine independently the editorial content of their broadcasts or other communications; be impartial, and afford fair opportunity for the presentation of divergent views and dissenting opinions, Dr Tai highlighted that various issues need to be addressed before ZBC can achieve that.
"These are issues which need a process. People quote the BBC as an example of a national broadcaster which is none biased. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) did not just become what it is overnight. It surely evolved and part of what it involves is what we are doing now. We cannot all of a sudden be a perfect BBC give us time.
"I have already said to you all these impartiality issues are in our board meetings how do we solve it. So we are in the process of dealing with it. It's a process. If you read the observer missions reports they all noted that there are some improvements but there is more which needs to be done. It's not like we are oblivious of these issues we recognise our shortcomings," said the board Chair.
Director News and Current Affairs, Gilbert Nyambabvu also echoed the board chair's sentiments adding that ZBC management is committed to ensuring that its reportage is ethical.
"We do admit that we could do more to stick to section 61(4) of the constitution," he said.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Wisdom Hombarume said the corporation is formulating a policy that will ensure ZBC is not abused for political mileage.
"A policy is going to be crafted, on the political insulations," he said.
