Back to Index

Economic decline
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2007-11
Monday March 19th – Sunday March 25th 2007

ALL the media failed to provide a clear picture of the sudden intensification of the economic crisis gripping the country. Although they carried a total of 114 stories, 85 of which were carried by the government media and 29 by the private media, this did not translate into informed analysis. Rather, the reports were piecemeal and failed to give a holistic picture of the state of the economy, particularly the acceleration in cost of living and its impact on the livelihoods of Zimbabweans.

The government media performed the worst.

For example, apart from highlighting indicators of economic decline such as continued price increases and commodity shortages, none of the stories linked this to government's economic mismanagement. Instead, most of their stories were premised on official statements portraying the authorities as working hard to address the problems.

It was in this context that the official dailies (23/3) and Spot FM (23/3, 1pm) just announced that government, business and labour had "agreed to unite under a campaign dubbed 'Zimbabwe First' aimed at achieving social and economic stability" without providing details about the agreement or how it would halt the economic decline. The story, which was mainly based on officials' statements on the importance of dialogue in turning around the economy, lacked input from the other parties to the agreement.

Earlier, The Herald (19/3) neither questioned the circumstances behind government's extension of its NEDPP economic blueprint to the end of the year, nor viewed it as indicative of the authorities' failure to address the economic crisis. Instead, it merely quoted Vice-President Joice Mujuru assuring the public that government was "doing all it can under NEDPP" to revive the economy.

Such professionally passive reportage also manifested itself in the way The Herald (21/3) allowed government to absolve itself from the fuel crisis, as well as ZBC's cursory coverage of a fresh strike by nurses and junior doctors who are demanding a review of their recently upped salaries. For example, rather than provide a well-informed presentation of the strike, ZTV (23/3,8pm) and Spot FM (24/3,8pm) simply quoted Vice-President Joseph Msika saying government was concerned about the continued strike action by health workers and other civil servants.

The private electronic media fared little better.

Although they linked government mismanagement to the economic crisis, their stories on the subject were limited to just highlighting indicators of economic decline. These included low industrial production, the strike by doctors and nurses, and the proposed ZCTU stay-away scheduled for April 3-4.

Notably, the government media did not report news of the planned work boycott.

The print media's sourcing patterns are shown in figs 1 and 2.

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