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Political Developments
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2005-14
Monday April 18th - Sunday April 24th 2005

THE media carried 210 stories on Zimbabwe's volatile political situation during the week. Ninety-seven of these appeared on ZBH while the government-controlled Press published 48 stories, the private papers 49 and Studio 7 aired 16 stories. Notably, the government media continued to flood its audiences with stories on Zimbabwe's 25th Independence anniversary at the expense of other pertinent post-election political developments.

For example, ZBH dedicated 75 stories (77%) out of the 97 reports it carried on political developments in the country to the Silver Jubilee celebrations. The other 22 stories were public relations stories on ZANU PF political issues. Of these, six were announcements on President Mugabe's expressed intentions to retire at the end of his term in 2008. None were on the political activities of other political players in Zimbabwe, especially those of the main opposition MDC.

In addition, ZTV gave one hour 47 minutes (43%) to the Silver Jubilee celebration out of the 4 hours 10 minutes of its main bulletins (excluding the foreign news section) in the week. A station-by-station coverage of the matter by ZBH is illustrated in Fig 1.

Fig. 1 ZBH's coverage of political developments

The government papers followed suit. They devoted 26 (54%) of their 48 stories on political developments to the Silver Jubilee celebrations. In addition to the stories, The Herald and Chronicle (18/4) each carried a Silver Jubilee celebration supplement of at least 10 pages. The government papers' 20 other stories (42%) continued to legitimise the outcome of the March 31st poll, including endorsing the appointment of the new Cabinet while simultaneously portraying the MDC and its alleged Western sponsors negatively. The rest of the stories were on President Mugabe's intentions to retire.

None of their stories reported the MDC's decision to disown South African President Thabo Mbeki as a credible peace-broker in the country's political crisis. Only a Herald cartoon (22/4) gave readers a hint of the news. But even the government media's charitable reports on the Silver Jubilee failed to translate into fair and balanced examination of the country's accomplishments and setbacks. Rather ZBH, for example, restricted its coverage to quoting voices that only repeated or magnified government's self-congratulatory achievements. Fig 2 demonstrates this point.

Fig 2 Voice distribution on ZBH

All the voices - ranging from selected members of the public, sports people and businesses to foreign diplomats - were unmistakable in their praise of Zimbabwe's "independence and democracy". But while ZBH flaunted the Silver Jubilee as a national event, it did not seek comment from other local political parties on why they had not actively participated in the event. Neither did it ask the criteria the government used to select and honour five foreign and six local heroes "for their contribution towards the development of the country and the liberation struggle".

The honouring of sports personalities who had excelled in the past 25 years by the Sports and Recreation Commission, an arm of government, also passed unverified. Instead, ZTV (20/4, 8pm) quoted selected members of the public as having called on the authorities to continue with the Silver Jubilee celebrations "for the next 12 months as this will conscientize the people on Zimbabwe's history and benefits of independence". The government-controlled media's docility was equally reflected in its passive coverage of President Mugabe's remark that he intended to retire at the end of his tenure. For instance, The Herald and Chronicle (22/4) did not investigate how Mugabe qualified his retirement, which he said was subject to his party's scrutiny pending his last three years in office.

The private media's 49 reports on political developments were more probing. These excluded 10 passive reports carried by The Daily Mirror and a19-page supplement on the Silver Jubilee celebration carried by the same paper. For instance, Studio 7 (22/4), the Independent and The Sunday Mirror remained sceptical of President Mugabe's retirement plans. The Sunday Mirror noted that Mugabe's statements that he would consider retiring after three years had raised "uncertainty...that...is reflective of the mystery that has surrounded the succession debate".

On Mugabe's claims that he would not groom a successor, the paper cited, as an example, the manner in which he had "guided" the elevation of Joyce Mujuru to the vice-presidency and the ruthless way he dealt with those who opposed the move. The paper also followed up on reports by Studio 7 (20/4), The Daily Mirror, The Financial Gazette (21/4) and the Independent that the MDC had broken contact with South Africa, accusing President Thabo Mbeki, of siding with ZANU PF in his efforts to resolve the Zimbabwean crisis. The Sunday Mirror however, criticised the MDC's decision in its Behind the Words column, saying the opposition party risked " the possibility of isolation by naiveté" as it would become "severely SADC-locked and politically suffocated".

Meanwhile, none of the media except for the Chronicle (19/4) gave any prominence to the violence that marred independence celebrations at Barbourfields Stadium, Bulawayo, during a soccer match between Highlanders and Motor Action. While other papers cursorily mentioned the incident on its sports pages, the Chronicle gave it front-page status. However, the paper suffocated the political undertones of the incident and only attributed the fracas to "hooligans" who were part of "hordes of people" who were denied entry into the stadium, which was already packed to capacity.

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