16/08/2025
Writing the Narrative-How Zimbabwe’s Media Is Learning to Listen
By Nyasha Gumbura
In Zimbabwe, the story of the key population has long been told through a lens not their own.
For decades, mainstream media coverage of gender and sexual minorities was shaped by silence, stigma, and sensationalism.
Headlines focused on scandal, criminality, or moral panic. When members of the community appeared in print or on air, they were often anonymized, misgendered, or reduced to caricatures. Their lives were framed as aberrations, their voices absent from the very stories that claimed to represent them.
This legacy of exclusion wasn’t accidental—it was systemic. Journalists operated within editorial cultures that discouraged nuance and rewarded controversy.
The key population particularly the LGBTI community was rarely consulted, and when they were, it was often under duress or in moments of crisis.
The result was a media landscape that reinforced public prejudice and denied the community its dignity.
But something is changing.
Across Zimbabwe, a new wave of media reform is quietly taking root—led not by institutions, but by freelance journalists committed to ethical storytelling.
These journalists, often working outside the constraints of legacy newsrooms, have initiated a series of transformative engagements with the key population.
Through workshops, listening sessions, and collaborative reporting projects, they’ve begun to dismantle the barriers between newsroom and community.
At the heart of this movement is the Reporting Guide for Media Practitioners, a landmark resource developed through these engagements.
The guide is more than a manual—it’s a manifesto. It challenges journalists to rethink their role not just as observers, but as allies. It offers practical tools for respectful language, informed consent, and contextual framing.
And most importantly, it centers the voices of those who have long been spoken about, but rarely spoken to.
The significance of this guide cannot be overstated. It marks a departure from the old model of journalism—where stories were extracted, edited, and published without accountability.
Instead, it promotes a model of co-creation, where community members are collaborators in their own representation. It encourages journalists to ask deeper questions: Who is missing from this story? Whose voice is being amplified? Whose pain is being commodified?
The impact of these engagements has been profound. Journalists who once approached the key population with trepidation or bias are now reporting with empathy and insight.
Editors are beginning to revise outdated policies. Newsrooms are slowly opening their doors to more inclusive narratives. And readers, too, are responding—recognizing the humanity in stories that were once framed as “other.”
But this progress is fragile. It cannot be sustained without continued investment in dialogue, training, and community partnership.
The Reporting Guide is a beginning, not an endpoint. If Zimbabwe is to build a truly inclusive media landscape, these engagements must be scaled, supported, and embedded into the fabric of journalistic practice.
More workshops are needed—not just in urban centers, but in rural districts where misinformation and stigma remain entrenched.
More journalists must be trained—not only in technical skills, but in cultural competence and ethical reflection. And more stories must be told—not just about struggle, but about joy, creativity, leadership, and everyday life.
The future of media representation in Zimbabwe depends on our willingness to listen—and to learn. The key population has always had stories worth telling. It’s time the media told them with the care, respect, and truth they deserve.
