Zimind scouts for marketing agency

A notice issued by the group's marketing and advertising manager, Linda Msika, said the group was “looking for a talented marketing communications agency that will develop a campaign that will launch NewsDay”.

The planned launch of the daily has already created excitement in the newspaper industry, which expects the inclusive, transitional government of President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai to license the banned Daily News, a tabloid daily closed in 2003 under the controversial Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

Industry players said they hoped that the inclusive government would also open the market to new players, as well as granting broadcasting licences to private players to break the monopoly by the state-owned Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings.

Gordon Moyo, a minister in the Prime Minister's office, has announced that the proposed Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC), to replace the Media and Information Commission, would be in place before the end of April. The ZMC would speed up the opening of the media by allowing new players in the industry lead the process of media reform. It would also register media houses.