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Apologists
for government's repressive media laws
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2008-3
Monday January 21st - Sunday January 27th 2008
The government media’s
show of anger towards BBC World Affairs editor John Simpson’s undercover
coverage from Zimbabwe of some of the country’s political and socio-economic
difficulties this week underlined their role as apologists for government’s
repressive media laws. The Herald (22 and 25/1) carried two
emotionally distorted opinion pieces in the week from columnists Leo
Makombe and Campion Mereki, attacking the BBC for behaving like a
"terrorist or spy media organisation" and
for "breaking Zimbabwe’s media laws with impunity by sending
one of its hacks to Zimbabwe to churn out falsehoods".
Under Zimbabwe’s old Access
to Information and Protection of Private Act foreign journalists
are barred from practising in the country until they have been accredited
by the Media and Information Commission, a practice the state has
used to restrict independent journalistic activity, free expression
and the free flow of information, as guaranteed in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. There was no attempt to establish how
recent amendments made to AIPPA before Simpson’s arrival might have
affected the situation. And, rather than view Simpson’s case as
a reflection of Zimbabwe’s repressive media climate – which has
equally given rise to clandestine coverage of the Zimbabwe story
by many other international news organisations – the papers used
the occasion to promote conspiracies about the BBC’s alleged regime
change agenda in Zimbabwe in collaboration with the political opposition.
The Herald
(22/1)
especially took issue with Simpson’s story on the possibility
of a split in ZANU PF led by former Cabinet minister Simba Makoni,
by simplistically querying why BBC carried it as "breaking
news" when it had already been reported by two Zimbabwe
weeklies. There seemed to be no understanding that Simpson was addressing
a world audience. In dismissing the story as false, the article
used Mugabe’s liberation pedigree to defend his government’s rule.
The story also suggested that the BBC had ‘no right’ to report on
the shortages afflicting Zimbabwe because "all newspapers
including The Herald…are covering these daily and weekly".
The Herald (25/1) merely amplified its previous story’s
arguments, presenting the BBC’s newsgathering as intrusive, "shameless"
and "desperate" and meant to create
a crisis that was not there. Evidently, the writer is unaware that
most of his readers live in Zimbabwe and have vivid first-hand experience
of reality.
In between, The
Herald (24/1) again seized on "confessions" by Zimbabwean
journalist Peta Thornycroft, in a series of interviews with SW Radio
Africa last year that she had been negligent in her coverage of
the MDC as proof that the international media had connived with
"certain players" in the country to demonise
the "real Zimbabwean story – the land issue".
As in two previous "features" carried in the paper at
the end of last year, her observations were grossly distorted to
support the authorities’ tired refrain.
Thornycroft’s
critical perception of the local private media’s shortcomings in
covering the MDC’s past activities was also distorted so that it
could be used as evidence of these media’s biased coverage, especially
domestic online news agencies domiciled abroad. The Herald’s habit
of publishing articles that twist the facts to suit its own biased
perspectives clearly represents a wilful violation of professional
journalistic practice and destroys its credibility as a newspaper.
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fact
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