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Cholera outbreak dominating press
Extracted from Media Update 35/2008
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
November 02, 2008

Zimbabwe's socio-political and economic crises continued to dominate newspaper headlines in the week with the increasingly dangerous outbreaks of cholera attracting greater attention now that it has spread to the capital's suburbs. See Fig. 1

Fig 1: Topical news distribution in the Press

Government papers glossed over the increasingly apparent catastrophic collapse of the country's infrastructure by blindly endorsing government programmes aimed at resolving these problems, while the private papers gave more credible accounts highlighting the indifference and inadequacy of government's actions.

The official Press confined themselves to official responses to the many problems afflicting the country without giving any overall perspective of the extent to which the nation and the economy had suffered as a result - most particularly the collapse in the quality of public services.

For example, the official papers' reports on the deadly new cholera outbreak in Harare, which the authorities admitted was the worst since 2005, barely reflected the gravity of the situation. Apart from promoting official pronouncements of government measures to combat the disease, the papers' audiences were given little information about how to deal with the crisis, especially in view of the "strike" by doctors and nurses and the chronic shortage of drugs, which has resulted in most health care centres failing to provide even the most basic service.

For example, The Herald (30 & 31/10) passively cited Health Minister David Parirenyatwa assuring the public that government was "putting measures in place to eradicate" the disease, which included setting up a cholera ward at Beatrice Road Infectious Diseases Hospital to "screen and monitor suspected cases" and "disinfecting all wells" in Budiriro, one of the most seriously affected suburbs.

These papers made no attempt to assess government's capacity to handle the crisis or explore the prevalence of the disease in other parts of the country. Nor did it cross their minds to provide any practical expert advice as a service to the public that would help them to protect themselves against the disease. And from official reports it also remained unclear whether the outbreak had actually claimed only six lives during the week as The Herald (1/11) reported.

Such murky treatment of the truth was also reflected in the papers' coverage of Zimbabwe's political impasse.

They continued to ignore the Morgan Tsvangirai-led MDC's concerns about ZANU PF's alleged lack of commitment to the negotiated settlement, including claims that some clauses of the original September 11th agreement had been tampered with. Instead, they exclusively blamed the MDC for the lack of progress. The Chronicle (27/10), for example, quoted Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa accusing Tsvangirai of not having the national interest at heart and likening his actions to those of former Angolan rebel leader, Jonas Savimbi. No attempt was made to view such comments as inflammatory and against the spirit of the power-sharing agreement.

The façade of a government in control of the cholera scourge was exposed in the private papers. They presented the country as ill equipped to deal with the outbreak, given the government's inability to provide Harare with uninterrupted supplies of clean water. They also warned the situation could worsen in the absence of an acceptable political settlement. For example, contrary to official claims that six people had died of cholera in Budiriro during the week, The Standard (2/11) reported an unnamed health official claiming that more than 20 people had succumbed to the disease in Budiriro and Glen View with 11 of them dying at Beatrice Road Infectious Diseases Hospital on Friday and Saturday alone. It cited medical sources at the hospital saying the clinic was "overwhelmed" by the number of people seeking treatment due to chronic shortages of resources.

The paper also cited bereaved families accusing government of being "indifferent to their plight".

The private papers also provided critical insights into other topical issues such as the stalled power-sharing agreement. They identified mistrust between ZANU PF and MDC as the main cause for the impasse, and began to report on the extraordinary fact that some of the clauses in the original agreement had somehow been irregularly altered to favour ZANU PF. They also questioned SADC's capacity to unlock the political logjam, arguing that the AU or the UN was better placed to tackle the matter.

The critical nature of the private reports was underscored by their wider use of alternative voices as compared to the official Press. (See Fig. 2)

Fig 2: Voice distribution in the Press

The public and private radio stations continued to highlight the search for an internal settlement as well as the country's deteriorating socio-economic conditions. (Fig. 3)

Fig. 3: Stories on ZBC and private radio stations

However, almost all ZBC reports on these issues steered clear of critically informing Zimbabweans about the causes of the problems or questioning the authorities about the effectiveness of their measures to combat them.

This was evident in the broadcaster's superficial coverage of the cholera crisis, which the authorities say has killed 31 people across the country since August, including four in Budiriro during the week (ZBC, 31/10, 8pm).

Instead of attempting to independently verify this figure and question the effectiveness of the authorities' interventions, ZBC (31/10, 8pm) merely reported approvingly of the visit to Budiriro by a delegation comprising government, municipal and UN officials to "assess the situation".

No analysis on the value of the visit was made, or of the creation of a committee to "monitor" the outbreak in Budiriro (ZBC, 8pm), especially in view of the fact that most hospitals and clinics were unable to provide basic services.

The public broadcaster restricted itself to government responses to the economic crisis and severe food shortages while making little attempt to investigate their magnitude. ZBC also continued to blame the MDC exclusively for the political impasse while exonerating President Mugabe.

The private radio stations poorly reported on the cholera outbreak and merely regurgitated the Herald's reports. However, they gave useful updates on the country's political stalemate, exposing growing international impatience, ZANU PF misrepresentation of facts on the deal and the resurgence of hate speech in the government media against the opposition. For example, while the government media maintained that only the allocation of the Home Affairs Ministry remained the sole cause of the deadlock, they reported the MDC refuting this, claiming that all the 'key' ministries previously grabbed by ZANU PF were still subject for negotiations.

The private radio stations also recorded three incidents of politically motivated violence and human rights violations committed mostly by state security agents and ZANU PF activists against suspected opposition sympathizers across the country. These included attacks against MDC supporters in Epworth, arrests of protesters in Harare, and the forced closure of the Progressive Teachers' Union of Zimbabwe offices in Gokwe. However, most of these incidents lacked police comment.

Online agencies

Private online news agencies gave overwhelming attention to Zimbabwe's political stalemate almost to the exclusion of other topical stories during the week (Fig. 5).

Fig. 4: Online agencies - most prominent stories

Fig 6: Online agencies -- voice distribution

What they said . . .

"The British and American intelligence must not try to turn Tsvangirai into another (Jonas) Savimbi. If Tsvangirai is allowed to be another Savimbi, we all know what happened in Angola and we cannot allow that to happen here. We will deal with that accordingly" - Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa accusing MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai for stalling the formation of an inclusive government. The Chronicle, (27/10).

"He visited this area on Tuesday promising to bring clean water but nothing has come since and more people are dying. He is useless" - A relative of the late Killian Tapfumaneyi Magumise and his wife, Ella, who both died of cholera in Budiriro, criticizing Health Minister David Parirenyatwa for not doing enough to address the situation. The Standard (2/10).

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