A senior government official has claimed that journalists and citizens are now free to exchange information unlike under the Mugabe administration.
In an interview with State Media on Thursday ahead of World Press Freedom Day, Secretary for Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Ndavaningi Nick Mangwana said:
The Second Republic has seen the democratisation of the democratic space in Zimbabwe.
A notable break from the old dispensation is that journalists and citizens are now free to exchange information and participate in public discourse without any persecution or prosecution.
There is free intercourse of ideas without any fear of recrimination.
Foreign Media Houses like the BBC are establishing bureaus in Zimbabwe, something that was anathema especially in the post-Land Reform period of the First Republic.
Every month we clear dozens of foreign journalists to come and report freely on events in Zimbabwe.
Mangwana added that it is critical for journalists to bear in mind that they are not above the law.
He bemoaned the training of local journalists, saying that it is largely theoretical and students struggle when they get to the newsrooms.
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