Okahandja, NAMIBIA – Former Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) prominent news reader and journalist, Joseph Madhimba has died.
Madhimba died in Okahandja, Namibia where he had relocated. He was 71.
Madhimba suffered a stroke last year and never recovered, it has been reported.
Madhimba was one of the prominent news readers of post-independence Zimbabwe until he left the country for Namibia in the early 90s.
The older Zimbabwe generation of the 1980s and early 1990s remember with nolstagia 8 P.M news read by Madhimba.
He became a journalism lecturer in Namibia when he left Zimbabwe.
Madhimba’s voice was popular on radio and television in the 80s and 90s.
Madhimba’s fellow news readers of the golden generation included the late Godfrey Majonga, Noreen Welch, Themba Hove and James Gora.
The ZBC used to employ professional journalists in the 1980s and 1990s after independence from Britain in 1980.
However, political interference resulted in top news readers and journalists leaving the state controlled station for greener pastures with some going to neighbouring countries such as Namibia, South Africa and Botswana.
Others went overseas.
Standards at the ZBC have remained poor with news readers and journalists making glaring mistakes when reading or presenting news.
In the early 2000s, a former government minister, Jonathan Moyo fired several senior journalists at ZBC replacing them with inexperienced staffers.
The new staffers at the ZBC were controlled from the ministry of information with Moyo calling the shots and forcing journalists to write government propaganda without questioning him.