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Government media misrepresenting facts about cholera outbreak
Extracted from Media Update 36/2008
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
November 09, 2008

The government media's professional dishonesty was again illustrated this week by their blatant distortions of topical events that evidently indicated the authorities' loss of control of the country's affairs. For example, instead of attempting to establish the full extent of the cholera epidemic and the adequacy of government's ad hoc interventions, these media merely carried superficial, piecemeal reports that papered over the devastating effects of the disease by focussing on the authorities' efforts to bring it under control. And in doing so, the government media obscured the initiatives of non-governmental organisations to curb the epidemic with vague headline stories of government's own efforts.

The Herald (4/11), for example, buried efforts by Harare City Council, UNICEF and the World Health Organization to fight the epidemic in Budiriro before central government had reacted to the crisis, in a story announcing that its Civil Protection Unit (CPU) had "stepped in" to "contain the cholera outbreak".

It then sought to project the NGOs' efforts as inadequate, quoting government as having said the water bowsers the organisations had provided were "only supplying half the amount of water required in a suburb that needs between 70,000 and 80,000 litres a day".

In contrast, the next day the paper depicted the CPU's actions as representing an "intensive programme" that "will help prevent the disease from spreading to other suburbs".

ZBC carried similar reports portraying the authorities' piecemeal interventions as appropriate without reconciling them with The Herald's revelation (5/11) that the situation remained "critical in Budiriro . . . with scores of people visiting Budiriro Polyclinic to seek treatment".

The official media did not say why the CPU, a rapid reaction unit for national disasters, was being called in if the situation was under control. They also made no attempt to investigate whether the CPU had the capacity to deal with the epidemic considering that they were merely being called to treat the symptoms of the crisis.

In contrast, the inadequacy of government's measures and the gravity of the epidemic found coherent expression in the private media. The Standard (9/11), for example, captured the spread of the epidemic to other Harare suburbs and quoted an unnamed Beatrice Road Infectious Diseases Hospital official belying the impression created by the official media stating that government had "done nothing" as "everything . . . was donated by UNICEF and the Red Cross...who have brought medication and food for patients".

Similarly, a Herald story (6/11) reported that government had "paid back" US$6,5 million to the Global Fund, presenting this as a normal loan repayment. Only the private media provided an honest context to this event in which it was revealed that the money was part of a grant allocated to Zimbabwe to facilitate HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria treatment programmes which government had spent on "other national priorities" instead.

The Herald avoided investigating the truth of the story by simply quoting Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono evading such evident abuse of funds by dismissing those alleging that the authorities had diverted the money to buy tractors as having "cheap minds," saying the "clearance of all outstanding obligations" with the Fund will "open a new progressive chapter with the donor community in the health sector". He was never asked to explain how the money had been spent.

While the private media gave fair versions of these issues, the dominance of the government media meant that most Zimbabweans relying on these media remained with a warped impression of the country's socio-economic and political crises.

The government and private press

Last-ditch SADC efforts to break the country's lengthy power-sharing stalemate and the worsening cholera epidemic received most coverage during the week as shown here.

Fig 1: Topical news distribution in the Press

The government papers continued to provide a distorted picture of these issues. For example, they amplified official pronouncements exclusively blaming the Morgan Tsvangirai-led MDC for the lack of progress in the formation of an inclusive government. In fact, 10 of the 20 stories they carried on the matter portrayed Tsvangirai as bent on scuttling the power-sharing deal to appease his alleged Western masters. This disinformation campaign reached absurd levels when Sunday Mail columnist Tafataona Mahoso likened Tsvangirai to some of Africa's discredited rebel leaders, such as the late Jonas Savimbi and the DRC's Laurent Nkunda (9/11).

Earlier, The Herald (5/11) allowed Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa to undermine legitimate regional concerns over Zimbabwe's crisis by attacking a proposal from Botswana President Ian Khama suggesting that fresh, internationally supervised elections would provide a solution, describing his observation as an "act of extreme provocation".

None of the government media asked him why a SADC nation had no right to express such a constructive suggestion. But the most offensive omission of the government media during the week was news in the private media revealing that ZANU PF had clandestinely tampered with the original terms of the power-sharing agreement in its favour, a fact eventually admitted by SADC executive secretary Tomaz Salamao. Nor did they report concerns by South African Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dhlamini-Zuma that the SADC troika communiqué had omitted mentioning that anomaly.

In contrast, the private papers gave more informative analysis of the country's worsening political and socio-economic crises as reflected by the prolonged dispute over the power-sharing deal, the spreading cholera epidemic and the country's precarious food situation. For example, besides assessing SADC's capacity to save the deal from collapse, they captured expressions of frustration by the regional and international community over ZANU PF's hard-line position on power-sharing and interpreted its allegations that the MDC was recruiting and training militia to topple government as another ZANU PF conspiracy theory to justify its intransigence.

The Zimbabwe Independent (7/11), for example, viewed the allegations as part of ZANU PF's strategy to defend its reluctance to cede the Home Affairs ministry to the MDC on the pretext that it wanted to safeguard national security in light of the alleged threats from its opponents.

However, none of the papers followed up on revelations made by the MDC's Welshman Ncube in an interview on SW Radio Africa (3/11) that Chinamasa had apparently admitted to tampering with the terms of the original agreement.
Notably, while the official papers allowed government officials to portray the MDC as a violent organization, the private Press carried seven stories on human rights violations that recorded two fresh incidents, and political violence allegedly committed by state security agents against ZANU-PF's opponents. These included the arrest of nine MDC officials in Banket (The Standard).

The private papers also reported on the escalation of the cholera outbreak and quoted observers attributing it to government's lack of "financial capacity . . . to deal with the root cause of the crisis" (the Independent) or to provide adequate medication, leaving the responsibility to organisations such as UNICEF and the Red Cross (The Standard (9/11).

The difference in the Press' coverage of these subjects was illustrated by the fact that although the government papers' sourcing patterns appeared diverse, they mainly quoted those who reinforced the official line, while the private papers tried to balance official views with alternative comment. See Fig 2.

Fig 2: Voice distribution in the Press

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