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High court ruling on Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ)
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2006-6
Monday February 6^th 2006 – Sunday February 12^th 2006

THE government media’s disregard for basic journalistic standards when handling issues that cast the authorities in an unfavourable light was illustrated this week by The Herald’s distortion of a High Court ruling (9/2) ordering the Media and Information Commission (MIC) to reconsider an application by the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ) for an operating licence.

The official daily muddled the full import of Justice Rita Makarau’s invalidation of the MIC decision not to accredit the ANZ by attempting to lessen the level of perceived bias of the commission’s chairman, Tafataona Mahoso, against the publishing house contained in a 2004 Supreme Court judgment.

It couched Justice Makarau’s citation of the Supreme Court ruling in semantic jargon saying its "finding was not of actual bias on the part of Dr Mahoso", adding that "no lower court could question a decision of the Supreme Court".

The paper also tried to underplay the significance of the ruling by claiming that Justice Makarau had set aside the MIC’s decision "after the commission’s lawyers conceded there could have been a perception of bias, without any actual bias".

A clearer version of the ruling appeared in the Zimbabwe Independent (10/6).

The weekly reported that besides echoing the Supreme Court’s observations on Mahoso’s bias, Makarau had also found that there was "merit in ANZ’s submissions that the MIC as presently constituted was disabled from validly considering the media organisation’s application as a result of Mahoso’s involvement in its decisions".

However, the paper noted that the judge said she could not "order the appointment of a new commission as that issue was not before her".

The Herald misrepresented this aspect by presenting the judge as having dismissed outright the ANZ’s request to have the "present commission disbanded". To reinforce this notion, it only cited Makarau’s reasons for not ordering the establishment of a different panel to deal with the ANZ’s application.

Notably, the MIC remained silent over the paper’s unprofessional conduct.

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