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Government
declares need to tighten control of independent sources of information
Media
Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2006-12
Monday
March 20th – Sunday March 26th 2006
Any hope that
the authorities might heed civic demands for the democratisation
of the media were dashed when Information Minister Tichaona Jokonya
declared there should be even more government control over independent
sources of information currently available to the public.
The Herald
and Chronicle (23/2) reported Jokonya calling on Africa to
"take charge of its airwaves and be in control of its
word" to "counter the predominantly Eurocentric
views peddled by the Western media", which "often
undermine the continent and its strategic interests".
He suggested
that the continent should "organise itself"
in the same manner Europe and America had done and buy into media
organisations "through seemingly private corporate bodies
whose purpose was to dominate the global media and discourse".
However, he
did not cite any companies that Western governments had clandestinely
used to take up ownership of the global media, nor did he provide
evidence supporting his claims.
Instead, he
tried to subordinate locally and internationally guaranteed rights
to freedom of expression and the media to issues of ‘national interest’
claiming that even in the US, "Press freedom ceased to
exist" once it "deployed its soldiers and
flag to a war zone" as the media "misrepresent
facts in (their) reportage to advance the county’s economic interests".
Exposing the
authorities’ warped understanding of the role of the media, which
has manifested itself in the promulgation of extensively repressive
media laws, he stated: "We in Zimbabwe are very clear:
We are Zimbabweans first and journalists much later in life. We
cannot sacrifice the country on the altar of so-called media freedom…Zimbabwe
first. Her interest first."
Without questioning
his distorted authoritarian understanding of the basic purpose of
the media, the papers simply allowed him to depict reports on the
country’s worsening crisis as a creation of the Western media, such
as the BBC and CNN.
ZTV (22/3, 8pm)
passively carried a similar report.
Visit the MMPZ
fact sheet
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