Editorial changes loom at state-run Zimpapers

The country’s oldest and biggest state-controlled media publishing house, Zimbabwe Newspapers (1980) Limited (Zimpapers), will on Monday announce new editorial changes following the recent appointment of a new board.

Zimpapers sources told The NewsHawks that Victoria Ruzvidzo will be appointed new editor of The Herald.

She is currently Sunday Mail editor.

Ruzvidzo makes her own piece of history as the first female editor of the Zimpapers flagship newspaper – The Herald.

Zimbabwean newsrooms are dominated by male editors and deep patriarchal structures.

Darlington Musarurwa, current Sunday Mail deputy editor, will replace Ruzvidzo as editor.

Current Herald editor Hatred Zenenga will go to the Sunday News in Bulawayo to replace Limukani Ncube who goes back to the B-Metro as editor again.

Lawson Mabhena, who was strongly tipped to become Herald editor, remains at the Chronicle as the boss.

The second chain of command – deputies and assistants – will be finalised next week prior to announcements.

The changes took sometime as new Information minister Jenfan Muswere and his colleagues took their time to make new board appointments.

The new board is chaired by former Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet Misheck Sibanda’s wife Doreen Joyce Sibanda.

The Sibandas are President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s relatives.

The listed Zimpapers publishes
The Herald, The Sunday Mail, The Chronicle, The Sunday News, Kwayedza (Shona newspaper), Manica Post, H-Metro, Suburban, B-Metro, Business Weekly and uMthunywa (Ndebele newspaper).

Zimpapers also runs a television platform, Zimpapers Television Network, and radio stations, Star FM, Capitalk FM, Diamond FM and Nyaminyami FM.

The group, which a big and wide footprint on the local media landscape, also has a commercial printing division, Natprint and Typocrafters.

Together with the state-owned Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, New Ziana, a news agency, and some community newspapers, Zimpapers gives the government overwhelming media influence in the country, although the private and digital media also occupy a vast space on the publishing spectrum and holds sway in some segments of the highly competitive news market.

Newshawks