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Daily Media Update No.43
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
May 01, 2008

Post-election focus
The Herald continued to deliberately divert the public's attention from Zimbabwe's post-election crisis by narrowly presenting them as having been caused by the opposition. For example, the paper fed the public with official propaganda attributing the escalating violence to the MDC while ignoring widely reported incidents of state-sanctioned violence against a cross-section of Zimbabweans in the private media. Its editorials portrayed the MDC-T as working in cahoots with the West to effect "regime change" in Zimbabwe without providing any substantial evidence. The paper also failed to provide any useful information about the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission's verification of the presidential vote.

The Herald's worst offence today was to selectively report the UN as having "fingered" the opposition as being responsible for violence against ZANU PF supporters, while ignoring the UN's criticism of state-sanctioned violence, which it considered to be far worse than that committed by suspected MDC supporters.

It selectively cited the UN's Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Lynn Pascoe, accusing the MDC of "also resorting to violence and intimidation", and used this to disprove what it called the MDC-T's "campaign to demonize the government for alleged violence and human rights abuses".

The report also made reference to a letter by the MDC-T MP-elect for St Mary's constituency, Marvellous Khumalo, accusing the losing MP for that area, Job Sikhala, of masterminding violence against him, as evidence of opposition violence.

The Herald claimed that the letter, which it published in its leader page, "also situates violence within opposition circles". Nothing was said about the reported widespread campaign of violent retribution campaign against MDC supporters. The blatant and crude distortion of the UN Under-Secretary-General's comments and the deliberate omission of his concern over alleged state-sanctioned violence unmistakably exposes the publication's dishonest editorial instincts that disqualify The Herald from being described as a newspaper, placing it firmly in the category of a propaganda tool for ZANU PF. That it also abused a letter-writer's honest submission to editorialize a news story in order to promote the image of the MDC being a violent party reinforces this certain fact and demonstrates the paper's utter contempt for the pursuit of the truth, let alone the basic principles of ethical journalistic practice. This constitutes abuse of the media at its very worst.

In another story, The Herald reported that the police intended to "interview" MDC secretary-general, Tendai Biti, for "illegally declaring" the results of last month's poll. The paper reported that by doing so Biti allegedly violated the Electoral Act, which gives the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission the exclusive right to announce results. The daily did not blame ZEC's inordinate delay for having prompted the MDC to announce the party's own version of the results. The story, based on a response to a letter Biti had written to ZRP Commissioner-General, Augustine Chihuri, complaining about the selective arrest of MDC supporters, claimed that Biti's alleged "political rhetoric . . . urged and abetted political violence" without explaining how. It did not question the implications of Chihuri's inflammatory reference to Biti as an "evildoer" or his treatment of the matter as personal. Instead, the paper passively reported Chihuri's claims that police's efforts to arrest Biti were unsuccessful because he "was nowhere to be seen".

The Herald recorded Chihuri writing that "the only time one sees you is on the international media, making all sorts of unsubstantiated allegations against everybody else and the country, gallivanting all over the world". The paper passively allowed Chihuri to accuse Biti and his party of allegedly "harbouring criminals" and having set up "democratic resistance committees", which he said had "become a real menace to our peace loving citizens, since March 11, 2007".

The paper did not ask him to substantiate his allegations and no attempt was made to seek comment from Biti, or the MDC.

Similarly, The Herald announced the arrest of 10 more MDC activists in Harare and Bindura on various allegations related to violent offences and - finally - the release of 182 MDC supporters arrested in last week's raid on the party's headquarters without viewing this as evidence of government's crackdown on the opposition. News of the release of the MDC supporters arrested on suspicion of committing acts of violence was buried in its report on news of the new arrests.

The story also quoted the president of the Chiefs Council, Chief Fortune Charumbira, urging Zimbabweans to "shun violence", which he said "attracts unnecessary interference from outsiders". The paper also inadequately reported on ZEC's ongoing verification exercise. It carried one story, which reported the head of the SADC election observer team, Marcos Barrica, as having met the ZEC chairperson, George Chiweshe, "to get an update on the electoral process" without elaborating.

Fig 1 shows the sourcing patterns in The Herald.

Fig 1: Voice distribution in The Herald

In contrast, the privately owned weekly, The Zimbabwean, today featured critical updates of Zimbabwe's post-election impasse, highlighted mounting pressure against Harare to release the missing poll results, and exposed more incidents of political violence. This was reflected in the 23 stories the paper featured on these matters.
Ten of these were on political violence, mainly against suspected MDC supporters, and recorded five fresh incidents.
For example, it quoted the Progressive Teachers' Union (PTUZ) saying "several of its members who served as polling officers" had been "abducted at night" by suspected state security agents and "forced to confess that they . . . rigged elections in favour of the opposition". The paper also reported the abduction and assault of two MDC officials; Tichazivei Gandanga and Knowledge Nyamhuka, in Harare and Makoni West, by suspected war veterans and ZANU PF activists. However, the paper did not seek comment from the police, or independently verify these incidents.

The Zimbabwean reported the US Ambassador to Zimbabwe, James McGee, saying his embassy had "forwarded evidence of state-sponsored violence" to the Zimbabwe government, in what appears to be a response to government's invitation for anyone with evidence of political violence to submit it to the authorities. In addition, McGee called on the UN to "intervene" in the Zimbabwe crisis and hinted that Washington could "widen" and "tighten the punitive measures to force Harare to uphold human rights".

In another report, The Zimbabwean, reported Jamaica's deputy Prime Minister, Kenneth Baugh, urging President Mugabe to "demonstrate his commitment to democratic principles" and "allow the will of the Zimbabwean people to prevail" by expeditiously publicizing and accepting the outcome of the results. The paper also highlighted the possibility of further delays in the announcement of the presidential election results. It quoted ZEC's deputy chief elections officer, Utloile Silaigwana, ruling out the possibility of the results being announced on Thursday saying the verification and collation process would "definitely not have been completed by then". He added that it was difficult for the commission to state exactly when they would release the results since the verification and collation process was "meticulous".

Fig 2 shows the sourcing patterns in The Zimbabwean.

Fig 1: Voice distribution in The Zimbabwean

*In yesterday's print report (No.42) MMPZ noted that none of the official papers attempted to explain the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission's idea "of asking the contesting parties (in the presidential election) to bring their own results and only release the final result once all the parties agree". This sentence should have read " . . . of asking the contesting parties to collate their own results and only release the final result when all the parties agree".

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