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Economic issues
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2006-14
Monday April 3^rd – Sunday April 9^th 2006

THE government media’s piecemeal coverage of key national issues duplicated itself in the way they covered the country’s economic issues. For instance, though these media carried indicators of the continued economic meltdown in their 45 stories on the economy (ZBH 16 and government papers 29), they barely gave a coherent picture of the general poor state of the economy or discussed the actual causes of the country’s economic woes. Rather, they simply reported symptoms of economic decay, such as the galloping cost of living and government’s attempts to control private hospitals’ medical fees outside the context of government’s failed policies.

In fact, these media’s dishonesty in handling the country’s economy resulted in ZTV (7/4, 8pm) and The Herald (8/4) burying the news on the rise in inflation rate from 782% in February to a record high of 913,6% in March. While The Herald reported the development deep in its inside pages, ZTV merely reported it as item 15 out of the 17 stories that the station carried on its newsreel (excluding sport and weather segments).

And even then, both media carried the matter as a mere announcement without interpreting it as a reflection of government’s failure to turn around the country’s economic fortunes.

Earlier, The Herald (6/4) had also relegated news on the increase in the monthly expenditure of a family of six from $28 million in February to $35million in March to its business section. Instead of viewing this development as yet another clear indication of economic mismanagement, the paper passively quoted the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe ridiculously advising people to buy, "household brands that are cheaper than branded products".

The government media’s failure to critically examine the ills afflicting the economy also saw these media censoring the militarisation of the economy. This only appeared in the private media. The Gazette and the Independent revealed that government had established emergency sub-committees under the Zimbabwe National Security Council headed by President Mugabe to run the economy in a bid to arrest the worsening economic crisis. They both interpreted the development as the authorities’ tacit acknowledgement of their failure to arrest the deteriorating economic situation in the country.

Moreover, the Independent continued to expose policy clashes in government. The paper reported that barely three weeks after Reserve Bank (RBZ) governor Gideon Gono had clashed with Energy Minister Mike Nyambuya over power tariffs, Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) chairman Sidney Gata had also been sucked into the fray.

Reportedly, Gata lambasted Gono for blocking the power utility’s proposed tariff hikes on the basis that it would worsen inflation saying the governor had "failed to manage inflation even without previous tariff increases". He added: "RBZ’s inflation targets were, after all, not met, nor its exchange rate targets, as well as its interest rate targets, all of which have had a very detrimental impact on Zesa’s operations and finances".

Besides, the private papers carried several reports on indicators of economic decline, which they linked to government’s mismanagement of the economy. These included the continued weakening of the Zimbabwean dollar against major currencies, the spiralling inflation and cost of living, commodity shortages and the drastic decline in the life expectancy in Zimbabwe.

All these were part of the 37 reports the private media (Studio 7 [5] and private papers [32]) carried on the country’s ailing economy.

The sourcing patterns of both sections of the print media are captured in Figs 1 and 2.

Fig 1 Voice distribution in the public Press

Fig 2 Voice distribution in private Press

Although the papers carried the same number of government voices, the tone of the private Press remained critical.

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