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Alternative
sources of information threatened
Media Monitoring
Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Media Weekly Update 2004-24
Monday June 14th – Sunday June 20th 2004
THE government’s
intolerance of critical viewpoints and its efforts to stifle the
few remaining alternative sources of information accessible to Zimbabweans
assumed greater momentum during the week. Having succeeded in closing
down yet another locally based privately owned newspaper, The
Tribune, under controversial circumstances, the government appeared
to have turned its sights on the South African-based weekly, The
Mail and Guardian and the privately owned radio station, Studio
7, which it accuses of disseminating anti-Zimbabwe propaganda from
Botswana.
The Voice of
America (VoA) runs Studio 7 under its Africa service programme while
Zimbabwean publisher Trevor Ncube owns The Mail and Guardian.
ZBC (14/6, main
news bulletins), The Herald and Chronicle (15/6) reported
Information Minister Jonathan Moyo as having officially objected
to his Botswana counterpart, Boyce Sebetela, to the hosting of the
radio station through that country’s medium wave frequency (909.000kHz).
The two government dailies quoted Moyo as saying government would
not have been bothered had the station been broadcasting from "the
moon or United States" since VoA is an
extension of US propaganda. Said Moyo: "What is an issue
is that there is a specific broadcasting material content branded
as Studio 7 which can be received on short-wave and that material
is found on a frequency allocated to Botswana." Moyo
was not asked whether VoA’s use of a Botswana frequency constituted
a crime.
However, Studio
7 (15/6) did shed some light on the legal status of the station.
It noted: "The International Broadcasting Bureau has
a longstanding agreement for a transmission site in Botswana which
allows VoA to broadcast on short-wave and medium wave to all of
Southern Africa. People around the world including Southern Africa
have long relied on VoA as a trusted source of news."
In another related
matter, The Sunday Mail (20/6) used unnamed sources to build
a case against The Mail and Guardian, which it warned, could
soon "find itself in trouble with Zimbabwe authorities"
for allegedly using "unregistered" local journalists as
correspondents and planning to publish the paper clandestinely in
the country without registration as stipulated under Zimbabwe’s
repressive media laws. No evidence was provided to substantiate
the claims. Rather, the paper tried to dignify its specious claims
by roping in the Media and Information Commission (MIC) head, Tafataona
Mahoso, who said that if the allegations against the paper were
true his commission would seek answers on the matter from the relevant
authorities and even from "those who regulate the media
in South Africa".
And on the home
front, the government media continued with its one-sided coverage
of the closure of The Tribune, designed to perpetuate MIC’s
justification of the shutdown. For example, The Herald and
the Chronicle (18/6) based their coverage of the alleged
"mystery" surrounding the ownership structure
of the weekly paper almost exclusively on the MIC’s interpretation
of the matter and drowned the explanation from the paper’s owner,
Kindness Paradza.
In fact, while
the two papers quoted the MIC querying the "real owners"
of The Tribune because its five directors "hold
only 100 shares of the 20 000 authorised shares" they
did nothing to verify Paradza’s claims that only 100 of the 20,000
shares had been issued while the rest remained unissued so as to
accommodate future shareholders as per corporate practice.
Sadly, the private
media did not clarify the matter either, forcing The Tribune
directors to do this via an advertisement they inserted in The
Standard.
To add to Zimbabweans’
information woes, Studio 7 (18/6) Radio Zimbabwe and ZTV (18/6,
8pm) reported that the Parliamentary Committee on Transport and
Communications had accused Moyo of meddling in the affairs of ZBC,
thereby eroding its independence and threatening its viability.
In fact, this further confirmed the long held suspicion that Moyo
was behind the broadcaster’s partisan editorial content. However,
the government media downplayed this revelation by suffocating it
with Moyo’s denial.
Meanwhile, mystery
continued to shroud the exact role of Transmedia Corporation Private
Limited, which the Business section of The Herald (17/6)
reported as having been licensed by the Broadcasting Authority of
Zimbabwe (BAZ) "in terms of the Broadcasting Services
Act no CAP.2:06 …to exclusively utilize the Ultra High Frequency
(UHF) for the provision of data casting and web casting."
The report said Transmedia, whose core business was signal transmission,
could use the UHF platform "to provide Internet and email
access to corporate bodies, cyber cafes, small offices, home offices
and residential users".
However, besides
drowning its readers in technical jargon over the use of the UHF
platform, the paper did not give any background to the communications
company or spell out exactly how it was going to use the UHF frequency.
ZTV (15/6, 8pm)
and Power FM (16/6, 6am) reports on this development were equally
hazy thereby leaving their audiences no wiser on the exact role
of Transmedia. Interestingly, The Herald (15/6) fleetingly
revealed that it was through investigations by Transmedia that had
established that "the Voice of America propaganda station
was being transmitted" from Botswana.
Visit the MMPZ
fact sheet
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