NewsDay’s first news editor: It seems like yesterday

HE newsroom was a vast expanse of room; virtually empty, save for a few desks and chairs spread along two sides of the room where I sat with my five-strong troop of reporters. [OCTOBER 31, 2010]

ZIMBABWE is slowly breaking free of a cash trap that has besieged the economy for more than three years, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor Gideon Gono has said, illustrating his assertion by a record surge in the value of non-cash hard-currency transactions recorded in the first three quarters of the year.

Gono said the value of deals executed through the country’s national payments system comprising the Real Gross Settlement System (RTGS), cheques, Internet and credit/debit cards, is estimated at about $15,1 billion, from January to September 30.

RTGS transactions accounted for 96% of the transactions or $14,5 billion, followed by cheques, cards and Internet, which accounted for about $200 million each with marginal variances among them, in that order.

“Our national payments system has bounced back,” Gono said. “Since we relaunched the national payments system

I had just been appointed news editor of the country’s new privatelyowned daily, NewsDay — the culmination of a long-drawn-out effort, played out behind the scenes, to have an alternative voice in Zimbabwe.

That was December 2009.

In the first week, we remained skeletal staff comprising mainly rookie reporters among whom was that bundle of energy, the diminutive Moses Matenga, Feluna Nleya, Daniel Nhakaniso, Tinashe Sibanda and busy-body Carter Chapwanya.

We had too, fairly experienced scribes in the team; Kelvin Jakachira and Valentine Maponga — making up an amazing team of gregarious journalists determined to face the challenges of a then hugely straitened media environment.

We were joined about a month later by Charles Laiton, coming from the courtroom; and Veneranda Langa last year, the value of transactions is on the increase. We are slowly winning the battle against the cash syndrome.”

The RBZ, Bankers’ Association of Zimbabwe and Treasury re-launched the national payments system in April last year, starting with RTGS and Zimswitch, as part of the reverse process of restoring the central bank’s core functions, which fell away when the country dollarised in February last year.

The collapse of the system had entrenched the cash trap that hit the economy in 2007 when hyper-inflation savaged banked savings, stoking the propensity for holding cash and squeezing the bulk of the economy’s transactions out of the formal banking system.

The restoration of the non-cash payments system has recouped banking confidence that has seen the industry growing its hard currency deposit base to $2 billion in less than two years – about 36% of the country’s nominal

whom we poached from the Parliament of Zimbabwe.

They arrived the same week that the newsroom took delivery of our first brand new furniture — those beautiful steel and wood desks.

Ironically, even as those desks are now long gone and forgotten, Langa and Laiton, like me, Daniel and Matenga, have remained part of the furniture at the now vastly grown Alpha Media Holdings (AMH).

Ropafadzo Mapimhidze, Philip Chidavaenzi, Owen Gagare and Mernat Mafirakureva (MHSRIEP) joined the troops a few weeks later and gelled very well with the team. Soon we were a full-fledged newsroom, raring to go.

The job of a news editor can be high pressure — having to make quick decisions on the spot and managing personalities; but the NewsDay team was one of the easiest and a joy to work with. gross domestic product estimate of $5,5 billion.

The market is confident the re-establishment of a lender of last resort last week will provide further impetus to the recovery of the sector, which had eased backed in terms of financial deepening and banking penetration ratios.

Currently about 17 000 Zimbabweans share one branch, according to estimates.

Citing the risk of loss presented by the volume of fake United States dollar notes banks have detected in circulation, Gono implored economic agents to snap out of the “cash syndrome” and switch to plastic money.

“Let’s use the banking system as much as possible.

“Yes, significant figures of fake currency have been brought to our attention. They are circulating in banks, kombis and shops. Don’t keep money at home. It’s bad practice to avoid banks.”

— NewsDay

Everybody, including the sub-editors’ desk headed by one industrious and knowledgeable Mapimhidze and later by Kamurai Mudzingwa, played ball.

We all worked with the one goal — to become the most popular and subsequently biggest daily in the country.

We spoke loud in the newsroom about this collective ambition and drove ourselves hard — working long voluntary hours.

The economic environment helped a great deal. Salaries had begun to come in United States dollars and our incomes — coming out of that worthless multi-trillion-dollar madness — made everybody happy to work.

So, when on that day, Friday June 4, 2010, the first edition of NewsDay hit the streets, the excitement was palpable.

Although the anxiety, the suspense — the fear of lynching by media watchers was overbearing, for me the experience was a personal achievement and it felt very good.

What energised me and gave me the much-needed confidence as news editor of the new daily, was the hard-toget nod of approval that my team and I received four weeks down the line from then editor-in-chief and editor Vincent Kahiya and chairman Trevor Ncube.

The news team grew as did other supporting departments and, although we had our pitfalls, some of which saw the inevitable ejection of members from the team, the crew lived up to its key promise: to provide a platform for Zimbabweans to talk to each other without fear or favour.

As news editor, I tried my best to be that vital spark which energised news coverage and help to give NewsDay the outlook it sought.

We broke many stories, exposed countless scandals while bringing to the fore a lot of developmental stories across the country.

Within three months of hitting the streets, NewsDay had set up a complete newsroom in Bulawayo as well as regular correspondents in all other cities and towns.

One of our major collective achievements as NewsDay editorial was being able to meet and exceed the growth target set by management.

If my memory serves me well, within five months of its launch, NewsDay had hit and surpassed the 50 000 print run target.

Barely a year later, we had beaten our own dream — printing 100 000 copies and exceeding that mark on August 15, 2011 the morning following the mysterious death in a farmhouse inferno of Zimbabwe’s most decorated military commander, General Solomon Mujuru. The cover price of NewsDay was then US$0,50 cents.

It is really unbelievable that it is already 10 years. The experience in the NewsDay newsroom at No 1 Kwame Nkrumah in Harare feels like yesterday.

The newsroom tensions, grim meetings, excited discussions and laughter all come flowing down as if it was yesterday.

The flurry and scamper of daily routine at the office made heavy demands upon my organising ability as news editor and that moulded a completely new personality in me.

While the helter-skelter of news gathering required shouting and kicking, I also learnt and mastered the art of exercising infinite amounts of patience.

I needed patience in dealing with that reporter who found nothing wrong in accepting a generous “gift” from a subject of a story just as I needed to “understand” the journalist who needed to be home with the children when they must be doing an urgent follow up to one of their sexy stories!

Yes, the newsroom is fun, tears, fear, joy and excitement. But it is also true of that place that one must not think they can keep normal working hours. That is not possible, unfortunately.

And this reality is truer of the news editor than of anybody else — the news editor is always on duty whether at home, in the office or anywhere else!

Happy anniversary NewsDay!

Tangai Chipangura is deputy editor for The Standard. He is former NewsDay deputy editor; former NewsDay assistant editor; former NewsDay news editor; Zimbabwe correspondent for Media 24, South Africa; editor of Moto Magazine; senior writer for Parade Magazine and editor of EveryHome Magazine.