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Pictorial use in the press
Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2006-43
Monday October 23^rd 2006 – Sunday October 29^th 2006

THIS week MMPZ monitored 46 images (pictures and cartoons) that appeared in the Press illustrating developments in the political, economic and agricultural sectors. Of these, 29 appeared in government papers and 17 in the private Press. Notably, almost all the images carried in the official Press depicted an economically and agriculturally stable Zimbabwe, enjoying sound diplomatic relations.

In contrast, most of the pictures carried in the private papers mainly consisted of ‘mug shots’ of sources cited in their reports. The only exceptions were their cartoons, which mostly dramatised government’s poor management policies.

a) International Relations
Pictures carried in the official papers sought to portray government as enjoying good international relations. The papers used a SADC summit held in South Africa to perpetuate such perceptions. For example, in one of its front-page pictures, The Herald (24/10) captured President Mugabe and his SA and Lesotho counterparts "sharing a joke" on the sidelines of the one-day meeting. The other was a group picture of the "SADC heads of state and government and members of the secretariat" shot at a different occasion: the 26^th SADC Summit in Lesotho "recently".

Besides the use of Mugabe’s presence at SADC meetings as a sign of Zimbabwe’s sound regional relations, the official papers also carried three pictures demonstrating the alleged successes of government’s ‘Look-East’ policy.

They then carried two cartoons portraying civic, labour and opposition organisations as puppets of the West (The Herald 29/10 and Sunday Mail). For example, The Herald cartoon depicted them as "African Hunting Dogs" on the leash of British Premier Tony Blair, who was shown dangling a bone before them.

Images in the private media over the issue were not only few, but dismal. They were mainly shots of the faces of the sources they quoted. However, a cartoon carried on the subject by the Sunday Mirror (29/10) implied, like the government papers, that Zimbabwe’s problems stemmed from Western interference, an allegation endlessly repeated by government officials and disseminated by the government media without providing any evidence.

b) Economic Issues
The official Press’ pictures on the economy promoted government efforts to turn around the economy, especially through the Reserve Bank. Four of the nine pictures on the subject were images of the bank’s governor, Gideon Gono. The Herald (23/10), for example, carried a prominent sequence of three pictures of Gono, caught listening attentively or emphasising points during an interview with the paper on the country’s economy. The fourth picture showed Gono shaking hands with a member of a cheerful crowd "soon after the introduction" of the new bearer cheques in Harare "recently". The caption described him as a "man of the people."

In fact, The Herald, the Manica Post and The Daily Mirror carried an extraordinary and unprecedented 15-page central bank supplement of cartoons entitled: Current Impediments and Contradictions in the Zimbabwean Economy: A cartoonist’s view.

The cartoons depicted the country as divided between those working hard to revive the economy (generally implied here as policy makers) and those sabotaging the economy, depicted as economic and agricultural players.

Except for two images in The Financial Gazette (26/10) and Zimbabwe Independent (27/10), the rest of the pictures in the private Press did not tell any particular stories. The Independent carried a humorous caricature of government’s anti-corruption commission, while the Gazette featured two sequence pictures of a gesticulating former Cabinet minister Enos Nkala blasting Zimbabweans as "useless people who have allowed ZANU PF to ruin the country".

c) Agricultural Issues
The government papers also used images to project the authorities as ready for the new farming season through timely provision of agricultural inputs to farmers such as seed, fuel and fertiliser. However, some of the photographs contradicted stories they were supposed to support. For example, while The Herald (23/10) carried an image of a man standing before bags of fertilizer, giving the impression that there were enough inputs, the caption and the story accompanying it revealed that there was actually a "shortfall of 10 000 tonnes of maize seed" that needed to be imported.

Yet, this did not stop the paper (26/10) and The Sunday Mail (29/10) from publishing images depicting the country’s chaotic agricultural preparations as proceeding smoothly. The Herald, for example, carried a picture showing a ‘farmer’ accessing fuel "for use in the forthcoming season" but remained quiet on the quantity of fuel since delivered and whether it was enough for the farmers’ requirements.

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