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State media institutions continue to abuse journalistic principles
Extracted from Media Update 26/2008
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
September 07, 2008

MMPZ notes with concern the official media's ongoing campaign to vilify all alternative sources of information that do not conform to the official view of developments in Zimbabwe, most particularly the local private and international media.

The government media, particularly print, illustrated its intolerance of the right to free expression and divergent views by selectively reporting criticism of the private and foreign media for lacking basic journalistic standards when covering events in Zimbabwe.

While MMPZ does not condone the abuse of journalistic principles by any media institution, it is hypocritical of the government media to preach the need to uphold professional reporting standards in view of the fact that they themselves are among the worst offenders.

While the official media were emphasizing these media's alleged failures, they remained blind to their own selectivity, bias and intolerance - and the pivotal role that diverse sources of information play in promoting democracy. For example, ZTV (1/9, 8pm) and The Herald (4/9) approvingly reported "a group of Chinese journalists" who visited the country "castigating negative Western media reports on Zimbabwe" and "pledging to project the real image of the country to the outside world". No attempt was made to impartially examine why Zimbabwe was receiving such publicity.

Instead, they simply quoted the Chinese journalists saying "media reports on Zimbabwe are not good," adding that they were "not sure whether it was safe (to visit Zimbabwe), but we changed our minds when we came here". No explanation for this was made.

In another attempt to discredit the Western media and present them as having a negative agenda against the country, The Herald (5/9) selectively reported the International Federation of Journalists as having "slammed" the BBC and other international media organisations for "exaggerating the situation in Zimbabwe". It quoted visiting IFJ secretary-general Aidan White telling journalists at the Quill Club recently that "he had a lot of misgivings over the way BBC portrays Zimbabwe". However, the paper all but suffocated his comments about the fact that he had "conveyed concerns over some media laws" to the government while failing to explain what these were.

It only emerged in the Zimbabwe Independent (5/9) that the IFJ secretary-general had promised that his federation would consider the "unacceptable and illegitimate laws" that have been used to create such a harsh media climate in Zimbabwe and the confrontational approach government has pursued against the independent media.

Press freedom in Zimbabwe remains a distant dream under the present repressive environment as evidenced by the continuing arrest and persecution of journalists and other media workers.

Herald columnist Reason Wafawarova reflected another example of this intolerance this week (9/9) when he attacked online publications and the Western media for peddling falsehoods against Zimbabwe. Wafawarova singled out Raymond Mhaka, who writes for an online agency he did not specify, for advocating for his expulsion from Australia because of his support of ZANU PF. Wafawarova descended to the level of personal insults in describing Mhaka as a "perfect idiot", "mentally feeble" and "fatuous person masquerading as a journalist on one of the mushrooming Zimbabwe online tabloids". By doing so, he too abandoned basic journalistic standards by resorting to the use of personally offensive and insulting language that merely served to destroy any credibility his claims might have had. He further described as "amazing" the "baseness, stupidity and rancour characteristic of the so-called news" on these websites. How Mhaka's personal views on Wafawarova's political affiliation warranted malicious attacks on the independent media generally and government's perceived opponents remained largely unexplained.

Such emotional and inflammatory expressions of intolerance have been an outstanding characteristic of the government media's coverage of Zimbabwe's two election campaigns. But if Zimbabweans really aspire to repairing the damage that has been done to the national psyche during this time, such hate-filled commentaries -they cannot be described as journalism - will have to stop. If Zimbabwe is ever to undertake an exercise in national healing, it will have to be led by example . . . by the media.

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