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Authorities'
determination to stifle critical journalism
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2006-46
Monday
November 13th 2006 – Sunday November 19th
2006
THIS week the Zimbabwe Independent
(17/11) exposed the authorities’ determination to stifle critical
journalism in the country by flooding the media industry with toothless
journalists. The paper revealed that government had ordered the
country’s main journalist training institution, the School of Journalism
and Media Studies at Harare Polytechnic, to recruit "only
students" who are aged above 21 and have "undergone"
government’s controversial National Youth Service training.
Reportedly, the polytechnic’s vice-principal,
Runyararo Magadzire, had then instructed the media school to enrol
students who are "able to prove their national consciousness
by way of civic issues and other related issues of national interest".
To make matters worse, the paper also
revealed that the panel of selectors comprises a "senior
lecturer from the department of National Strategic Studies and two
external selectors, one from the Media and Information Commission
(MIC) and the other one from a ‘reputable’ media house recommended
by the MIC". Although the paper did not get comment
from government on why issues such as "national
consciousness" and "national interest"
– previously defined narrowly along ZANU PF lines – should be prerequisites
for journalism enrolment, it quoted two commentators exposing the
underlying intentions of the move.
While Bill Saidi viewed the development
as an attempt to "instil a wrong type of patriotism
in trainee journalists", an unnamed journalism
lecturer observed that government was "trying to
militarise media schools" and "entice
youths to join the National Service" because "age
and national service have no correspondence with one’s performance
as a journalist". The lecturer also noted that
the move would further erode the students’ academic freedom because
most of the national service graduands have previously been "used
as classroom spies who report to the principal’s office on the happenings
at the college".
The government media ignored this development,
which further exposes the authorities’ resolve to completely corrupt
the country’s media space, and by extension, free expression.
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