New daily in Zimbabwe will launch online first, then in print

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on December 11, 2009 at 4:42 PM

The newest daily newspaper in Zimbabwe, NewsDay, will be launched online six months before it appears in print, as the political situation in the country stabilises.

NewsDay will be Zimbabwe's first independent daily newspaper in six years and is projected to create 300 jobs.

Newspaper proprietor Trevor Ncube told South African technology website TechCentral that the Zimbabwean government has not yet issued the licence they need to start printing. Although he has been waiting for the licence for almost a year, he hopes that a deal being finalised between Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF and Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change will allow current restrictions on media to be lifted.

"A deal between the protagonists might be clinched, if not before the end of this year, then certainly by early next year," Mr Ncube said.

He hopes that the print version of NewsDay will be available by June 2010 at the latest. In the meantime, there are plans for the NewsDay website to launch in the next week.

"We will use social media like Twitter to help publicise the website," he added.

News websites in Zimbabwe are not subject to the same licensing rules as print newspapers. Because of this, the site will be hosted locally, at NewsDay.co.zw.

Trevor Ncube is the CEO of several newspapers including the Mail & Guardian in South Africa, as well as the Zimbabwe Independent and The Standard in Zimbabwe. At the recent World Newspaper Congress in Hyderabad, India, he argued that it was important for newspapers to have both a clear mission and a sustainable business model. He has also expressed support for charging for some online news, such as in-depth analysis, while providing breaking online news for free.

Source: TechCentral