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ZBH news selection and treatment
Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2006-43
Monday October 23^rd 2006 – Sunday October 29^th 2006

a. Suffocation of important news
THE government broadcaster’s failure to adequately handle pertinent issues affecting the public was illustrated by its suffocation or censorship of important stories. For example, ZTV (23/10&24/10, 8pm) buried news that "seven more cases of anthrax have been detected in humans in Hurungwe" in its bulletins, preferring to give prominence to less important stories like a conference on distance education. Worse still, there was no information on the extent of the pandemic or when it exactly broke out.

The broadcaster also ignored the resumption of the trial of Michael Peter Hitschman, who is facing conspiracy charges. This was in stark contrast to the massive publicity it gave to the case early this year when Hitschman was arrested together with some MDC officials on charges of plotting a coup.

Only the private media [Studio 7 & SW Radio Africa (26/10) and New Zimbabwe.com (27/10)] reported this important news during the week. It also demonstrated the government media’s disregard for its journalistic obligation to report trials it has started reporting on. ZBH also censored cases of alleged corruption involving government officials. Again these only appeared in the private media.

b. Misleading reports
Apart from suffocating important stories, ZBH also carried misleading reports that sought to sanitise the country’s crisis. For instance, this week ZTV continued to give the impression that the local dollar had remained stable against major currencies, without attributing it to government controls on the exchange rate.

Besides, the broadcaster also tried to project the ‘national vision’ document drafted by some church leaders as having been unconditionally embraced by all Zimbabweans, including President Mugabe. For example, while ZTV (27/10, 8pm) reported Mugabe as having wholly endorsed the church initiative, his comments showed otherwise. He was quoted saying that although the document was welcome some issues that it proposed such as the drafting of a new constitution were "not negotiable," just like "independence" and "sovereignty".

Similarly, while Spot FM (27/10, 1pm) depicted the document as having been endorsed countrywide saying it now belonged to "each and every Zimbabwean" there was no evidence to support this.

c. Technical blunders
ZBH’s poor news presentation was worsened by the technical glitches that characterised some of its bulletins of the week. These included poor sound quality, wrong titles and footage mix-ups. ZTV (26/10, 8pm) bulletin epitomized the broadcaster’s technical incompetence. In its report on the outgoing Austrian Ambassador’s meeting with Mugabe, the station showed a video of tobacco farmers transplanting the crop instead.

An effort to correct the mix-up resulted in more boobs as another wrong video on the burial of Professor Peresu was aired. It was only after the third attempt that ZTV finally got it right.

Similarly, Spot FM (26/10, 8pm) aired a wrong newsreel in place of its usual ‘Good Evening’ bulletin. The error was only rectified five minutes later. Besides such blunders the broadcaster also displayed sloppy titling. For example, ZTV (26/10, 6pm) presented the National Arts Council as National AIDS Council.

No apologies!

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