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International relations
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2007-49
Monday December 10th - Sunday December 16th, 2007
December 20, 2007

THE government media failed to provide informed coverage of proceedings at the widely publicized EU-Africa summit in Portugal.

They simply reduced reportage of the summit to a victory accolade for President Mugabe, whom they glowingly projected as having prevailed over Britain and its allies' attempts to block him from attending the meeting.

The official media's fixation with presenting Mugabe as a hero resulted in them failing to fully apprise their audiences about the summit's agenda, its deliberations and resolutions. There was also no sensible explanation about why Britain had opposed Mugabe's attendance, except for the official line that the behaviour of the former colonial power was an act of vindictiveness against the government for confiscating land from white farmers for distribution to the landless majority.

Instead, the government media simplistically used the huge media attention that Mugabe received and solidarity messages from about half a dozen African leaders as confirmation of his international popularity while simultaneously dismissing out of hand, accusations of government's poor human rights record and mismanagement of the economy by the international community.

As a result, there was no relating the media frenzy surrounding Mugabe to his notoriety as a leader. Neither did the government media question the nature of the African solidarity in light of the continent's own concern about Zimbabwe's political and economic crises, as illustrated by on-going SADC mediation efforts, fronted by South African President, Thabo Mbeki.

This one-dimensional presentation of the matter was emphasized by the media's selective use of voices, either focussing on self-praise by officials or highlighting comments that only painted a favourable image of Mugabe and his government mostly by African leaders and commentators blatantly loyal to the ruling party, such as The Herald's political editor, Caesar Zvayi. See Fig 1 and 2.

Fig 1: Voice distribution on ZBC

Fig 2: Voice distribution in the government Press

ZTV (10/12, 8pm) also passively reported President Mugabe boasting to ruling party supporters on arrival from the Lisbon summit, claiming that his participation showed the world that "we are victors over the British". There was no elaboration.

The next day, the Chronicle (11/12) similarly failed to balance Mugabe's claims of victory with independent analysis. It simply reported Mugabe saying that apart from "scoring a diplomatic victory" over Britain, he was also "the man of the moment" at the summit as journalists and photographers "fell over each other to take pictures of him".

It quoted Mugabe: "It was as if they would eat me. (They) were busy asking me to look in their direction so they could take pictures. I kept turning my head as they took pictures and I thought my neck would end up being sore . . . "

The Herald (12/11) editorial: Zim outshines West in Lisbon and The Manica Post (14/12)'s President's Lisbon road show leaves West stunned, amplified this lopsided presentation.

All ZBC stations (11/12, 8pm) quoted Foreign Affairs Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi merely magnifying Mugabe's assumed diplomatic victory over his Western opponents.

The official media drowned criticism of Mugabe at the summit. For example, instead of informing their readers about what German Chancellor Angela Merkel said about Zimbabwe, The Herald and Chronicle (10/12) suffocated her comments with Mugabe's observations and those of other African leaders. For example, they reported Mbeki and Senegal's Abdoulaye Wade as having "stood by" Harare, saying Europe was "uninformed" about Zimbabwe. ZBC adopted the same stance.

In their efforts to divert attention from the substance of the EU's criticism of Mugabe's government, the official Press particularly used hate and inflammatory language against those who raised concerns on the Zimbabwe crisis.

The stories were part of the 44 reports they carried on the matter, 16 of which appeared on ZBC and 28 in the government papers.

Only the private media gave a balanced perspective of the matter. Their stories on the subject (electronic media [18] and Press [24]) not only questioned the accuracy of Mugabe's supposed popularity, they also attempted to report other developments related to the summit. The Zimbabwe Independent's Editor's memo (14/12), for example, dismissed claims of Mugabe's popularity as stemming from his notoriety as a repressive leader. It questioned how he could boast of having defeated the British when public sentiment at the summit did not corroborate this, especially when hosts Portugal even made it clear that although Mugabe had been invited, he was not welcome.

Further, it noted that if Britain was "defeated", why was Mugabe "despondent, stuck in isolation when he made his 'gang of four' remarks against his critics" and why Information Minister Ndlovu found it necessary to get "angry on behalf of Mugabe" by lashing out at Merkel.

The paper's Muckraker columnist agreed. Citing extracts from a report in the British-based Financial Times, it chronicled some events that portrayed Mugabe as having been shunned at the summit. One of them involved Portugal's Premier, Jose Socrates, who was reportedly pictured greeting Mugabe "with his hands behind his back".

The private media also gave expression to those attacked by government for their public disapproval of government policies. SW Radio Africa (10/12) and the Independent reported the Dutch and Swedish governments saying they were "pleased to be part of the 'gang' to defend human rights". In fact, the Independent reported Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkanende saying Mugabe's outburst was not about the four countries, because the "critical remarks came from EU foreign minister, Javier Solano, and commission chairman, Jose Manuel Barrosso, who spoke for the whole EU".

The private media exposed growing international isolation of the ruling elite by the international community by reporting that New Zealand had extended its targeted sanctions to include the denial of student visas to adult children of senior government officials.

The private media's critical approach was reflected in their voice distribution, which depended on a variety of diplomatic sources.

Fig 3: Voice distribution in the private electronic media

Fig: 4 Voice distribution in the private Press

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