Back to Index

International Relations
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2005-43
Monday November 7^th 2005 – Sunday November 13^th 2005

THE candid dissection of the causes for Zimbabwe’s economic decline by United States Ambassador Christopher Dell continued to stir up frenzied rhetoric in the government media. Rather than give the issue informed and balanced coverage, these media pursued their anti-Dell crusade characterised by personal insults and official threats against the ambassador, which included expulsion and the loss of diplomatic immunity.

For example, none of the 30 stories the official media carried (ZBH 16 and government papers 11) adequately clarified the source of government’s paranoid attack, nor even attempted to rebut Dell’s claims.

The Herald and Chronicle (7/11) just rehashed the previous day’s Sunday Mail story revealing that government would summon Dell to "explain his actions of uttering political statements expected from an opposition party official rather than a diplomat".

ZTV (9/11, 8pm) also vaguely reported government’s attack on Dell as coming "in the wake of developments", which included mention of the US ambassador accusing "the government of Zimbabwe of corruption and misrule" in speeches he made at Africa University in Mutare and at Harare’s Meikles Hotel.

None of the government media covered the speeches or identified the country’s laws that Foreign Affairs Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi claimed Dell had "flagrantly" violated. Nor was it clearly explained how his comments were construed to constitute interference in the country’s internal affairs.

ZTV (9/11, 8pm) only quoted the minister accusing the envoy of "falsely portraying the government as a villain" and "inciting the people against government in flagrant violation of the provisions of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations".

In addition, it reported Mumbengegwi threatening to invoke the Vienna Convention, especially the provisions of Article 41 paragraph 1, which basically empowers the "receiving State" the right to expel ambassadors, among other measures, for disrespecting that country’s "laws and regulations". The Herald and Chronicle (10/11) carried similar reports.

The government media’s partisan coverage of the matter was also illustrated by The Herald’s celebratory tone (11/11) following government’s official censure of the envoy. The paper commended the development arguing that Dell had "set about his mission" to "bring about illegal regime change" with "sickening passion".

The story dovetailed with the Chronicle’s earlier call (9/11) for the envoy’s censure. The Chronicle, for example, had urged the government not to "sit and watch while someone torches its house" but should "show the pseudo-diplomat the way out of Zimbabwe".

In fact, ZBH’s chief correspondent, Reuben Barwe, set the anti-Dell tone on ZTV (8/11, 8pm) when he accused the ambassador of "championing the cause of the MDC". To give credence to his opinions, he followed this up with a leading and biased question to President Mugabe: "Dell has been rabble-rousing?"

To which the President obliged: "You can tell him that I can’t spell Dell, I can spell H.E.L.L., that’s what I know and he might be there one of these days."

The next day, The Herald and Chronicle (9/11) misrepresented the President’s comments, claiming instead that he had told the ambassador to "go to hell".

ZBH maintained its unbalanced coverage, accessing pro-government analysts and selected members of the public to weave conspiracies portraying Dell as an enemy of the country. However, its reluctance to provide details about the Dell saga was reflected in ZTV’s vox pop on the topic (9/11, 6pm & 8pm) where several of the 11 people interviewed exhibited little knowledge of the topic they were being asked to comment on.

The official media also diverted the public’s attention from Dell’s observations by swamping their audiences with 28 glowing stories (ZBH 15 and government papers 8) on the visit by former Malaysian premier Mahathir Mohamad.

The stories mainly used Mahathir’s accounts of his country’s economic success to vindicate government’s adoption of the ‘Look East’ policy in turning around Zimbabwe’s economic fortunes. 

The government Press’ partisan handling of these issues was reflected by its failure to balance government sources with alternative views as shown in Fig 1.

Fig 1. Voice distribution in the government Press

Notably, almost all foreign voices were that of Mahathir and delegates to the Southern African International Dialogue Summit (SAID), in which Mugabe lashed out at the "former colonial powers" for allegedly "lecturing their former colonies on democracy".

The US embassy was only quoted once in a small story buried on page two of The Herald (11/11). Although ZBH’s sourcing pattern appears balanced, the entire alternative voices merely echoed or amplified government’s attacks on Dell, while the foreign voices quoted were mostly those of Mahathir.

Fig 1. Voice distribution on ZBH

The private media did not pay much attention to Mahathir’s visit or the SAID summit.

However, their coverage of the Dell/Harare row was fair and balanced in the eight stories they carried (four appeared on Studio 7 and the rest in the private papers).

For example, while The Financial Gazette (10/11) quoted Mumbengegwi threatening Dell with expulsion if he "acts in violation of the laws of this country" at "any time in the future", it balanced this with comment from the US embassy. It quoted an unnamed embassy spokesperson saying the US ambassador had made the statements "after a series of attacks on the US by President Mugabe", one in which Mugabe described leaders of the US and Britain as "international terrorists".

Studio 7 followed suit. While it reported Mumbengegwi and Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga dismissing Dell’s speeches as political, it also cited civic and political commentators saying Dell’s speech was nothing exceptional. For example, Studio 7 (9/11) quoted former Harare journalist Sydney Masamvu contesting the US ambassador had said "something out of the ordinary", saying he was only expressing his views on Zimbabwe’s "crisis", something other ambassadors "mostly from African countries" were reluctant to do due to their "blind solidarity".

Economist Eric Bloch, quoted by the Zimbabwe Independent (11/11), concurred. While Bloch argued that Dell’s comments were "nothing but fact" as government had "brought economic growth to a halt" creating "widespread poverty and untold suffering."

Although the private papers balanced their reports as reflected by their sourcing pattern in Fig 2, they dented this by failing to get more diverse views on the subject.

Fig 2. Voice distribution in the Private Press

Visit the MMPZ fact sheet

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP