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Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2006-47
Monday November 20th 2006 - Sunday November 26th 2006

THIS week the government media used President Mugabe’s visit to Iran and government’s hosting of various regional meetings to paper over the country’s pariah status. They carried 38 stories on these matters, of which 21 appeared in the official Press while ZBH aired 17.

Almost all their reports passively rehashed official statements that sought to portray the country as enjoying sound international relations.

As a result, there was no critical assessment of how exactly the country would benefit from the trip and the meetings. For example, ZBH (22/11, main bulletins) announced that "six agreements were signed" between Zimbabwe and Iran resulting in a "memorandum of understanding on social, political and economic affairs."

Similarly, Spot FM (23/11, 8pm) simply claimed that the "lives of millions are to improve through various agreements reached at the Comesa summit" and other regional meetings the country hosted without explaining how.

Neither did it provide information on the agreements.

Instead, the official broadcaster seemed more interested in sprucing up the images of the two countries, which it alleged were victims of unwarranted Western demonisation. While Iran was unreasonably being vilified for its "nuclear programme", ZBH claimed (20/11, morning bulletins) that Zimbabwe was unjustifiably being ostracised for its "land reform".

No attempt was made to honestly discuss the reasons behind the West’s concerns over the two countries.

Instead, ZTV and Spot FM (20/11, 8pm) passively quoted Mugabe narrowly blaming the West for the chaos in Iraq and lambasting US President George Bush for naming Zimbabwe and Iran as part of the "axis of evil". He contended that it was the West that were the "actual evil doers" Zimbabwe and Iran had to fight "in order to re-establish a multi-polar world".

The official Press’ reports were cut from the same cloth.

The Herald and Chronicle (21/11), for example, passively reported Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad exalting Mugabe as a "prominent, influential and just leader, a person who loves freedom" and a "leading fighter against colonialism on the African continent".

Without reconciling such remarks with the situation on the ground, particularly state-sanctioned human rights violations, they then reported (22/11) Iran as having pledged to "stand by Zimbabwe" and condemn the "illegal economic sanctions imposed against Harare by the West".

Besides allowing Iran to dishonestly present the targeted travel sanctions imposed on the ruling elite as a trade embargo, the papers did not explain the actual reasons behind their imposition.

The official media’s attempt to gloss over the country’s isolation was also apparent in the manner they handled the country’s hosting of regional ministerial meetings and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) summit.

Instead of examining the import of the meetings, these media narrowly projected them as yet another affirmation of the international community’s confidence in Zimbabwe.

For instance, The Herald (21/11) claimed that contrary to "blatant lies peddled by the Western propaganda machinery" that Zimbabwe was isolated, the country’s membership to Comesa "shows it has never been out of the family of nations".

The government media’s selective use of favourable statements by foreign diplomats to distort the country’s true international status and their failure to professionally handle the matter was reflected in their sourcing patterns. See Figs 1 and 2.

Fig. 1 Voice distribution on ZBH

Fig. 2 Voice distribution in the government Press

Notably, none of the official media tried to balance their reports with alternative views.

Except for the Mirror group, the rest of the 11 stories that the private media carried (Press 9, electronic media 2) did not see anything beneficial from the presidential visit to Iran and the regional summits, which they generally ignored.

They noted that the Iran visit would not benefit Zimbabwe’s economy and would actually result in further mortgaging the country’s mineral resources.

For example, Studio 7 (21/11) and The Financial Gazette (23/11) revealed that Zimbabwe had "agreed to supply Iran with (several) minerals" to settle its debt. The Zimbabwe Independent and SW Radio Africa (24/11) carried similar reports noting that previous deals Mugabe had signed with various countries to halt Zimbabwe’s economic decline had not yielded the desired results.

In addition, the two pointed out that although Zimbabwe had granted Russia and China mineral rights in an effort to attract economic aid from the East, the region has so far "not given Mugabe credit lines".

This, SW Radio Africa observed, was due to the "lawless business environment" that government had created in the country.

Although the private media carried fewer stories, they critically handled the subject as illustrated by the private electronic media’s balanced sourcing pattern as shown in Fig 3.

Fig. 3 Voice distribution in the private electronic media

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