07 Dec CONDOLENCE MESSAGE ON THE PASSING ON OF JANET MUNYAKA
The Chairperson, Professor Ruby Magosvongwe; the Deputy Chairperson, Mr Jasper Maposa; the Board of Commissioners and the Secretariat of the Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC); all send their deepest condolences to the Munyaka family and the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) on the passing on of veteran broadcast journalist Ms Janet Munyaka, ZBC’s Diplomatic Correspondent, on 5 December 2020.
Ms Munyaka was one of the few remaining senior correspondents whose careers started in the 1990s. For this reason, many upcoming news reporters looked up to her as a model and leader. As is common here in Zimbabwe and elsewhere, newsrooms depend on such skilled and experienced mentors to enable the media industry to continually play its critical role in society. Ms Munyaka probably got infected by the coronavirus while in the line of duty because broadcasting had been recognized and classified as an essential service to remain operating even in the middle of the strictest phases of the lockdown due to COVID-19.
The late Ms Munyaka’s passing on also painfully coincides with the most critical phase in the development of broadcasting in this country, the opening up of the sector to new players where experienced broadcasters of Munyaka’s calibre are sorely needed. This is why the media fraternity feel they have been robbed of a dedicated and professional journalist who still had a great part to play in the media through her career. It is both inspiring and painful, however, to realise that at the time of her death the late Ms Munyaka was still improving her education. We understand she missed this year’s graduation ceremony at the University of Zimbabwe because she had fallen ill. Otherwise, she had completed her studies toward a Master’s Degree in International Relations, a fitting field of study for a Diplomatic Correspondent.
For all these reasons and more, those who mourn Janet Munyaka with us must do so with a sense of commitment and vigilance against the coronavirus which contributed to cutting her life so short. This fight, this vigilance, still depends to a great extent upon the frontline role which professional journalists of Ms Munyaka’s calibre continue to play each day.
May her soul rest in peace.
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