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Economic decline and decay
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2005-38
Monday October 3^rd – Sunday October 9^th 2005

THE country’s economic meltdown dominated media coverage again during the week.

The electronic media carried 58 reports on the issue, 41 of which appeared on ZBH (ZTV [13], Power FM [14] and Radio Zimbabwe [14]), while the private radio stations carried the remaining 17 (Studio 7 [8] and SW Radio Africa [9]).

The Press carried 68 stories on the matter. Of these, 29 were published in government papers and 39 in the private Press.

But while all media highlighted symptoms of the country’s ailing economy, it was only the private media that related the issues to government’s mismanagement of the economy.

The government media simply reported on indicators of economic distress in isolation without holistically relating them to the country’s poor macro-economic environment.

In fact, all 41 stories that ZBH carried avoided investigating government’s responsibility for the country’s economic contraction. Instead, most reports sought to give the impression that the authorities were working hard to halt the slide and resuscitate the economy.

For example, ZTV (4/10, 8pm) passively celebrated the latest payment of US$15 million by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) to the IMF as indicative of the country’s commitment "to meet its international obligations". Without giving a full picture of the country’s indebtedness to various multilateral institutions, the station simply claimed the move had resulted in the "firming of the stock market".

Subsequently, Radio Zimbabwe (6/10,1pm) unquestioningly reported that the RBZ had launched a "foreign currency-accumulating programme aimed at strengthening the Zimbabwean dollar" without explaining how this would be achieved. Similarly, the station and its sister stations (6/10, 8pm and 7/10, 6am) did not explain how RBZ’s plans to "realign its structures" would improve the central bank’s "effectiveness and efficiency" in resolving the country’s deteriorating economic situation.

While Power FM (6/10,1pm) reported that the consumer basket for a family of six rose from $6,9 million in August to $9.6 million in September, it failed to view the matter as indicative of the authorities failure to arrest the economic decline.

The government Press stories were no different. For example, 22 (76%) of the 29 reports the government papers carried simplistically attributed Zimbabwe’s economic problems to either the ‘drought’ or ‘sanctions’ and projected government as doing everything to address the crisis. The seven economic decline stories they carried were basically piecemeal and failed to reconcile government policies with reality – most particularly another plunge in the value of the local dollar, to more than Z$100,000 to US$1.

None of the stories the government Press carried on Zimbabwe’s relations with the IMF openly discussed or traced the reasons behind the fall-out between the two.

Instead, the government Press carried six stories attacking the Fund’s planned decision to expel Zimbabwe, alleging that Britain and its allies were using the institution as a political tool to isolate the country. For example, The Herald and Chronicle (6/10), vilified the IMF for allegedly selectively applying its rules. The papers claimed that while the Fund was considering expelling Zimbabwe, it had not taken similar steps against worse debtors like Sudan, Somalia and Liberia. However, in making this comparison, the papers appeared unaware of the irony of the ‘failed state’ status of these nations. Nor did they explain whether their arrears were, like Zimbabwe, owed from the IMF’s critical General Resources Account (GRA) since only arrears under this account trigger the possibility of expulsion.

No comment was sought from the IMF.

The Herald (7/10) reinforced its partisan coverage by dismissing as "scandalous" businessman Mutumwa Mawere’s two letters to the IMF alleging that money from his government-confiscated companies could have been used to settle part of the country’s arrears.

To highlight the notion that government was working hard to combat economic decline, the official Press carried five reports on the fuel shortage crippling the country portraying the authorities as having finally found a solution to the crisis.

The Herald (3/10), for example, tried to link news that fuel was "trickling in" to Harare and Bulawayo to President Mugabe’s recent assurances that fuel supplies were set to improve in the "next few days". However, the paper was unable to explain the volumes of fuel the service stations received or how it had been sourced. Instead, it childishly quoted a motorist thanking government for supplying the fuel, whose stocks, said the paper, had "ran out in the afternoon" of the day it was delivered.

The Sunday Mail (9/10) story, Noczim in new fuel supply deal, also offered precious little details on government plans to ensure a long-lasting solution to the crisis. The government media’s lop-sided coverage of the country’s dire economic crisis was reflected in their sourcing patterns, which failed to balance official comments with alternative viewpoints.

Fig 1 Voice distribution in the government Press

Fig 2 Voice distribution on ZBH

Although ZBH also gave more space to business voices, these were mainly quoted either ‘hailing’ government or expressing problems affecting their businesses and not the national economy.

A more informative view of the country’s parlous economic situation appeared in the private media. For example, Studio 7 & SW Radio Africa (5/10), The Daily Mirror and The Financial Gazette (6/10), the Zimbabwe Independent (7/10) and The Sunday Mirror (9/10) all carried an IMF report, which forecast that the economy was headed for ruin unless government took "a bold change in policy direction". The Fund projected that the economy would shrink by 7% this year compared to 4% last year, while inflation would rise to 400% by year-end. The government media ignored this.

Studio 7 (3/10) and The Sunday Mirror also reported on a recent UN Conference on Trade and Development World Investment Report which rated the Zimbabwean economy as one of the worst in the world. According to their reports, Zimbabwe only attracted foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows of US$60 million in 2004 compared to US$2 billion in Angola and US$132 million in Mozambique.

Although The Herald (3/10) carried a similar story, it deliberately distorted this disastrous figure by claiming a 100 percent increase in investment over the previous year and avoided investigating why this "significant increase…" fell short of "the US$444 million achieved in 1998".

Apart from highlighting the international bodies’ views on the country’s economic performance, the rest of the stories in the private media were event reports and analysis graphically illustrating an economy in severe distress.

In fact, the difference in interpretative reporting between the official and private papers on the country’s economy was summed up by their coverage of government’s plans to pay former political prisoners, detainees and restrictees gratuities totalling $36 billion in addition to other allowances. While The Herald (8/10) passively announced the development, The Standard reported analysts describing the payouts as a disastrous "replica" of the 1997 economic disaster triggered by the award of $50 000 gratuities each to war veterans, which sent the economy into free fall. Studio 7 (3/10) also noted that the unbudgeted $200 billion government intends to set aside for the Senate elections would also severely damage the economy.

The private press’ more diversified news coverage was reflected in its sourcing as Fig 3 shows.

Fig 3 Voice distribution in the private Press

However, the private stations compromised their analytical approach by failing to balance independent commentators’ views with official comment and other pertinent voices as illustrated by Studio 7’s sourcing pattern. See Fig 4.

Fig 4 Voice distribution on Studio 7

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