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International relations
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2007-46
Monday November 19th - Sunday November 25th 2007
November 29, 2007

The official media continued to give distorted and simplistic explanations on why government had become an object of international rebuke in 53 stories they carried on the subject: ZBC [28] and government papers [25]. This was illustrated by the way they deliberately misrepresented international concern over government's political and economic policies and its poor human rights record with conspiracy theories that dismissed these issues as hypocritical and aimed at promoting Britain's alleged "illegal" regime change agenda. As a result, there was no coherent discussion on the root causes and multifaceted nature of the fall-out.

Instead, they presented the problems as instigated exclusively by Britain as a reprisal for government's violent agrarian reforms that dispossessed white commercial farmers. It was in this context that The Herald (23/11) passively reported President Mugabe as having "roasted" incoming Australian ambassador to Zimbabwe, Charles Hodgson, on why his country "gets involved in the bilateral dispute between Zimbabwe and Britain" during the presentation of his credentials to Mugabe. Earlier, ZBC's reporter Judith Makwanya simply amplified Mugabe's sentiments by claiming that relations between the two countries had "soured in recent years following Australia's decision to support Britain over the land question in Zimbabwe" (ZTV and Spot FM, 22/11,8pm).

The Herald (23/11) also reported that Mugabe had quizzed Hodgson on why Australia "makes a lot of noise" about Zimbabwe's human rights record "yet Harare was far ahead of Canberra in upholding human rights given the way Aborigines are treated in Australia". However, no facts comparing the two countries' human rights records were provided. Neither did the paper seek Hodgson's view of this opinion.

The government media also contrived facts to discredit incoming US ambassador to Zimbabwe, James McGee. For example, while The Herald (23/11) reported him promising to work with the "government and people of Zimbabwe" during confirmation of his appointment, it claimed that soon afterwards McGee had told his country's Senate that he would continue from where his predecessor, Christopher Dell, "left in pursuing the regime change agenda in Zimbabwe". Nowhere was McGee quoted saying this.

ZTV and Spot FM (22/11,8pm) did not perform any better. They merely perpetuated the notion that US ambassadors were unruly, alleging that Dell had left the country "without bidding farewell" to Mugabe following "a series of incidents of confrontations with the laws of the land and the government of Zimbabwe".

Similar distorted reporting characterized the official media's coverage of the international debate on the merits of inviting Mugabe to December's EU-Africa summit in Portugal.

They only reported approvingly of world sentiment favouring his attendance while rubbishing alternative views. In fact, the government media reports merely glossed over the authorities' pariah status with positive comments from 'friendly' countries and no attempt to rationalize the matter. In this context The Herald and Chronicle (24/11) prominently reported Namibian Health Minister Richard Kamwi saying SADC had "resolved that I affirm that we stand by Zimbabwe" and called for the "immediate lifting of sanctions imposed on our sister country" during the launch of the SADC Malaria Week. No attempt was made to point out that only Zimbabwe's ruling elite was under sanctions and not the whole country.

The government media also failed to fully inform their audiences on the progress of the SADC-led mediation efforts between ZANU-PF and the MDC to resolve the country's crisis or censored reports that the talks could collapse. Instead of investigating the purpose of South African leader Thabo Mbeki's visit to Harare and what he discussed at separate meetings with President Mugabe and MDC faction leaders Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, they only relied on official statements predicting a favourable outcome of the talks. ZTV and Radio Zimbabwe (22/11, 8pm) and The Herald (23/11), for example, passively quoted Mbeki saying he was "optimistic that the outcome of his facilitation in the dialogue . . . will be positive" without seeking comment from the MDC to establish their opinion of the progress being made.

Figs 1and 2 show the voice distribution of the government media.

Fig 1: Voice distribution on ZBC

Fig 2: Voice distribution in the government Press

Only the private media exposed growing international pressure on government to reform in the 39 stories they carried on the topic. Twenty-eight of these appeared in the private electronic media and 11 in the private Press. The Zimbabwe Independent, for example, reported that South African President Thabo Mbeki had "piled pressure" on Mugabe to speed up the pace of the talks between his party and the MDC after having missed deadlines in September, October and November. Reportedly, Mbeki indicated that he wanted to report as soon as possible to the SADC troika on politics, defence and security and hence wanted the talks to be finalized by the first week of December.

Contrary to the impression given by the government media that the dialogue was proceeding smoothly, the private media reported that they were in fact dogged with problems. For example, SW Radio Africa (23/11) revealed that the representative of the Tsvangirai faction in the talks, Tendai Biti, "walked out" of a meeting held three weeks ago and had been refusing to take part in the talks unless ZANU-PF "ends its orgy of violence". Earlier, ZimOnline (19/11) reported Tsvangirai "urging Mbeki to pressure Mugabe to end political violence". SW Radio Africa (20/11), Studio 7 (19/11) and the Independent carried similar stories.

And unlike the opinionated coverage of McGee's comments by the official media, the Independent cited him saying the US remained "committed to seeing free and fair elections next year through which the people of Zimbabwe can express their will".

Moreover, Studio 7 (20/11) and The Zimbabwean (22/11) revealed that the EU had agreed to have the human rights situation in Zimbabwe put on the agenda for the Portuguese summit so as to send a "clear and tough" message to Mugabe on his misrule. The private media's critical coverage of the topic was illustrated by their sourcing patterns, which sought diverse views as shown in Figs 2 and 3.

Fig 3: Voice distribution of the private electronic media

Fig 4: Voice distribution in the private Press

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