COVID-19 worsened the media environment in Southern Africa

Research shows that the COVID-19 pandemic has hurt the viability of media outlets in southern Africa. Print media has been the most seriously affected.

In his report, South Africa's Rhodes University journalism professor Reginald Rumney found that the COVID-19 pandemic had dramatically affected the media in the region.

“This crisis, particularly the lockdowns and restrictions on movements, forced audiences online all to consume broadcast news," Rumney said to VOA. 

Alpha Media Holdings, the publisher of NewsDay, The Independent, and The Standard in Zimbabwe, stopped printing paper copies of its publications for months. It cut all staff's pay by half, and those not directly involved in e-paper production were put on leave.

As a result of the closures, Associated Media Publishing discontinued publishing its magazines such as Cosmopolitan, House & Leisure, and Women on Wheels, while Caxton and CTP Publishers & Printers announced the closure of their magazines.

South Africa’s weekly Mail & Guardian kept publishing but said some advertisers had canceled their campaigns.

Rumney said without a dramatic turnaround or external assistance such as donor funds, most media houses in southern Africa will not get out of the hole that the coronavirus put them in.

The issue has a special resonance in Zimbabwe, where media activists mainain authorities have assaulted journalists while doing their jobs.

* This article contained information that was sourced from VOA.