Back to Index

Inadequate news coverage
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2006-29
Monday July 17^th 2006 - Sunday July 24^th 2006

THE information gap created by the country’s restrictive media environment was illustrated this week by the manner in which the media handled the doctors’ strike, intensifying power cuts, discussions on local currency reforms, human rights violations and debate on Benjamin Mkapa’s efforts to resolve Zimbabwe’s crisis.

While the government media gave these important stories superficial coverage or ignored them, the private media, especially the niche market private radio stations and online agencies, openly discussed these issues.

(a) Doctors’ strike
THE government papers initially censored news of the junior doctors’ strike when it broke out and only reported about it days later during the week. They carried 25 stories on the subject, 15 of which appeared in the official press while the remaining 10 were aired on ZBH.

However, despite this seemingly significant coverage of the strike and related health issues, the stories were scarcely informative. They did not fully explain the causes of the strike, its extent or its effects on Zimbabwe’s ailing health system.

Instead, the stories were largely premised on officials’ condemnation of the industrial action and their rhetoric on how they were working vigorously to improve health service delivery. Notably, these claims were not reconciled with the situation on the ground, especially in light of the serious shortages of medical staff and drugs, or balanced with alternative views.

For example, only one story out of the 15 stories the government Press carried featured both the government and the doctors’ standpoints on the strike. Otherwise, the rest basically presented the doctors as an ungrateful and insensitive lot.

They also tried to downplay the strike by presenting it as inconsequential. For example, The Herald (17/7) contended that surveys it conducted "…showed that while the strike had affected central hospitals, operations were going on as usual with senior doctors attending to patients".

In fact, the papers (22/7) misleadingly reported some of the striking doctors as having returned to work after government had "increased their vehicle loans from $50 million to $2billion and basic salaries". No confirmation was sought from the doctors.

The Mirror stable was equally superficial in its coverage of the strike in all its five stories on the matter, despite its occasional disclosures of the suffering caused to patients by the job boycott.

Its slant was epitomised by The Daily Mirror story (18/7); Doctors’ pride affects patients, which narrowly attributed the strike to doctors’ alleged self-importance and avoided a frank discussion of the problem.

While the Zimbabwe Independent (21/7) highlighted the contents of a letter the doctors had allegedly written to President Mugabe stating their grievances, The Standard and The Financial Gazette completely ignored the strike.

A more informative and balanced perspective appeared on Studio 7 (18-20/7), Newzimbabwe.com (19/7), zimdaily.com (19& 20/7) and Zim Online (19/7). Their seven stories explained the reasons behind the strike and its adverse effects on the country’s health delivery system.

(b) Power shortages
THIS week the media generally failed to inform their audiences on the reasons for worsening power cuts imposed by the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA).

The government media, for example, passively rehashed official pronouncements that sought to attribute the problem to vandalism of power infrastructure by illegal copper dealers.

For instance, almost half of The Herald’s eight stories on the subject peddled this perception and even extended it to Kinshasa, the capital of the DRC by the beginning of the following week (24/7) warning of longer and more frequent power outages.

Apart from the Mirror papers, the rest of the private media remained reticent on the subject.

For example, The Daily Mirror (20/7) reported ZESA’s new power tariffs and questioned the logic of the hikes at a time when the utility’s service delivery had deteriorated (21/7).

However, like the rest of the media, the Mirror stable have still not audited the full extent of the losses suffered by business and industry, let alone the suffering of residents as a result of the worsening power cuts. Nor has the extraordinary mystery surrounding the closure of the three thermal power stations of Harare, Bulawayo and Munyati been adequately explained.

For example, for how long has the country been without their contribution to the energy grid, and now that the RBZ has "bailed out" ZESA, when are they likely to be back in service and what difference will this make?

These media seemed uninterested in joining the discussion, offset by revelations in private papers.

For example, only readers of private publications learnt about how the proliferation of zeroes on the country’s currency was making it impossible to "store and process information" as "the software cannot support 11 digit figures" (The Financial Gazette [20/7] and Independent [21/7]). Government officials and economists were reported confirming the development.

In fact, the Independent reported businesses as having proposed that government slash three zeroes on local dollar transactions and consolidate the dollar’s value as "kilo dollars" for easier transactions, while The Daily Mirror (22/7) quoted Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono apparently agreeing, saying he was "consulting" over the issue, which he described as "urgent".

They carried 11 stories on the topic, nine of which were carried by private radio stations and online agencies, while the private papers only featured two.

Even so, the Zimbabwe Independent’s story belied official claims for the withdrawal of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan from mediating in the Zimbabwe crisis. It quoted his press officer Yves Sokorobi denying Annan had shelved his mediation because he was an "African" who did not want his name tarnished by a "bilateral dispute" between Zimbabwe and Britain.

Earlier, The Financial Gazette (20/7) quoted France and the US dismissing government’s claims that the country’s problems stemmed from a bilateral dispute over land reforms. Both countries actually urged Zimbabweans to first engage in political dialogue among themselves to resolve the crisis before seeking "rapprochement with foreigners".

Studio 7 (20/7) carried a similar report.

However, it did not reconcile claims by acting Information Minister Paul Mangwana that Mkapa’s mission had been arranged under the auspices of SADC with its earlier report (2/6) in which late Information Minister Tichaona Jokonya stated that the initiative was Zimbabwean.

All private radio stations and online agencies (20-21/7) also reported the meeting between MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai and SADC chairman Festus Mogae, in an effort to disprove Mugabe’s misrepresentation of the causes for Zimbabwe’s woes.

The government media’s audiences only learnt of the meeting when Herald columnist Nathaniel Manheru attempted to dismiss it as irrelevant (22/7).

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