By Zweli Martin Dlamini

Ukhozi FM Presenter Zimiphi ‘ZimDollar’ Biyela did well by forcefully grabbing a microphone from Maskadi artist Mthandeni during the Mother of Maskandi Festival on Saturday night.

This woman journalist remains a role model, some artists approach us as journalists and asked to be promoted but once they become popular, they see themselves as bigger than journalists or radio presenters who promoted their music.

As the Master of Ceremony(MC), ZimDollar did well to demonstrate her powers by grabbing the microphone and remove the artist from the stage,after all, he had no authority or permission to perform after arriving late.

In the media industry, we have worked very hard to make some artists popular.

As a journalist who started as a entertainment reporter, I fully understand why ZimDollar behaved that way against Maskandi artist Mthandeni and I fully embrace “ZimDollar’s I don’t care attitude” after all she did nothing wrong.

Once artists become popular, some tend to disrespect the journalists who introduced them to the masses, hoping that, their followers will insult the journalists on social media, this is very wrong.

ZimDollar explained that Mthadeni was supposed to perform at 7pm but he arrived at 9:30pm and forced his way to the stage, that was very unprofessional and a demonstration of disrespect to the woman MC and organizers of the show.

A Master of Ceremony(MC) is the Director of the proceedings who has been entrusted to ensure order and accuracy of time throughout the show or event, anyone who disrespects an MC is actually showing a middle finger to the organizers and the audience.

Furthermore, millions are spent to organize such events, only for one artist to become arrogant and mess-up the whole event, ZimDollar was maintaining order.

Journalists or radio Presenters must learn from the bravery of ZimDollar, as media practitioners, we are privileged to see artists and even politicians struggling to climb the ladder and become popular, and once they are popular, we must not be intimidated by their followers.

After all, popularity of artists come and go and the media will be here promoting others.

Personally, I learned a lot from the conduct of Ukhozi FM Presenter ZimDollar, this is a brave MC and a radio Presenter who can be trusted with the accuracy of time and maintaining order during events.

As for Maskandi artist Mthandeni, he must learn to respect MCs and be accurate on time when contracted to perform. 

All brave journalists are like ZimDollar, they don’t worship artists because of their popularity.

Journalists particularly radio Presenters promotes artists, once you disrespect radio Presenters because of your ‘temporal’ popularity, you are actually activating your downfall.