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Government media unreliable sources of information
Extracted from Media Update 37/2008
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
November 16, 2008

The government media's unreliability as trustworthy sources of information was underlined by their reluctance to inform their audiences on issues that reflected badly on the ZANU PF government. This week, they again turned a blind eye to state rights violations, which continued to expose ZANU PF's insincerity in upholding provisions of the power-sharing deal whose main cornerstone is political tolerance. But this was hardly surprising as it suited their on-going attempts to blame the deal deadlock on the MDC, which they have repeatedly projected as repulsing ZANU PF's magnanimity by irrationally shifting positions on the formation of an inclusive government in order to sabotage the agreement on behalf of its alleged Western sponsors.

Only the few remaining private media exposed the continued political intolerance, largely marked by violent infringement on Zimbabweans' constitutionally guaranteed rights to freedom of association and assembly, whose victims were mainly MDC and civic activists. They carried 12 stories on rights violations and recorded five fresh incidents of political violence. All but one of the cases fingered state security agents as perpetrators of the violence against MDC and civic activists and ordinary people. The remainder stemmed from clashes between ZANU PF and MDC supporters at the venue of the SADC meeting in South Africa tasked with finding a breakthrough to the country's power-sharing stalemate. Otherwise, the rest of the rights abuse stories were general assessments of the country's worsening human rights record.

In one of the incidents of state viciousness, The Standard (16/11) reported that police officers in "riot gear and armed with AK 47 assault rifles" had swooped on a Masvingo nightclub and "severely assaulted" its "defenceless patrons" accusing them of buying alcohol in foreign currency before ordering an early closure of the club.

Earlier, private radio stations (11&12/11) and The Financial Gazette (13/11) reported on police heavy-handedness in dealing with largely peaceful protests by civic activists demanding a new constitution and the establishment of a transitional authority to steer Zimbabwe out of its political crisis and pave way for fresh elections, further highlighting the extent to which the country has plunged into a police state.

Also, it was only the private media that openly reported on ZANU PF's in-fighting as mirrored by the decision by former PF ZAPU leaders to renounce the unity agreement between the two parties and revive their old party (Zimbabwe Independent, 14/11); and the growing discord over the succession issue ahead of ZANU PF's conference next month (The Gazette, 13/11).

Although the official Press reported on former PF ZAPU leaders' discontent, they glossed over the matter by dishonestly presenting it as a minor disagreement that ZANU PF still had control over.

It is such unprofessional practice by the public media that justifies calls for the repeal of the country's totalitarian media laws and their replacement with more democratic legislation that would facilitate the establishment of more news outlets, which would satisfy Zimbabweans' diverse information needs.

The government and private press

Concerns over the fate of the troubled ZANU PF/MDC power-sharing talks after a weekend SADC meeting again failed to resolve the impasse dominated Press coverage ahead of the country's health and food security problems. See Fig. 1

Fig 1: Topical news distribution in the Press

Despite this, the government papers failed to give useful updates on the power-sharing deal, whose drawn out deadlock over the allocation of the security ministries (especially that of Home Affairs) between ZANU PF and the Morgan Tsvangirai-led MDC, have dramatically increased the possibility of its collapse.

For example, the official papers only provided approving coverage to ZANU PF and the breakaway MDC led by Arthur Mutambara's support and compliance with the SADC directive for the co-ministering of the Home Affairs portfolio while trivializing reservations on the matter by MDC (Tsvangirai).

The Herald and Chronicle (13/11), for example, glowingly reported the ZANU PF Politburo as having "unanimously" approved the SADC resolution and urged President Mugabe to "proceed to form an inclusive government immediately" while MDC (Mutambara) "also called for MDC-T to comply with the SADC position".

Consequently, none of the papers' reports assessed the prudence of the region's verdict or gave clear expression to the reasons why the Tsvangirai-led MDC formation was opposed to it.

Such superficial coverage of the matter ballooned into blatant misrepresentations at the weekend when the papers distorted the decision by the MDC (Tsvangirai) national council to reject the SADC calls for the co-management of the ministry, including their resolve not to join the proposed inclusive government until all other outstanding issues such as the appointment of provincial governors and principal government officials, were addressed. For example, The Herald (15/11) report: MDC-T okays unity Govt, selectively cited the third item of the council's 11-point resolutions pledging participation in the proposed government "once Constitutional Amendment No. 19 has been passed and effected into law" out of context.

There was no improvement in the official papers' coverage of other topical issues like the escalating cholera disaster, fostered by the crumbling health sector and the critical poor service delivery. For example, the papers understated the prevalence of the cholera outbreak in the country while simultaneously praising government interventions to stem it without any critical examination of their sufficiency.

The Sunday Mail (16/11) reported the disease as having killed 37 people in Harare since its outbreak while earlier, The Herald (14/11) announced that the pandemic had been detected in other parts of the capital like Glen View 3 and Mashonaland West and Mashonaland East without attempting to explain or investigate whether the disease had become a national epidemic.

The private Press gave a critical assessment of the power-sharing deal. They interpreted SADC's calls for the co-ministering of Home Affairs as illogical, unprecedented and in favor of ZANU PF, especially as the party had already unilaterally grabbed all other national security portfolios.

In addition, the papers reported the ZANU government as still intolerant of dissent as evidenced by further attacks on suspected government opponents mostly by state security agents. They carried six stories on the matter, recording three incidents. The private Press highlighted problems bedevilling the health sector, including acute shortages of resources, which they argued made it difficult for the government to eradicate the cholera scourge.

Despite this, the private papers were unable to carry independent investigations on the national cholera casualties, relying exclusively on figures provided by aid agencies, which estimated the fatalities at over 100. However, they quoted health experts accusing government of downplaying the crisis and warning of a worse catastrophe if it continued dodging addressing the root causes of the outbreak. They painted a grim picture of the country's food situation too.

The Standard (16/11), for example, reported of worsening food crisis with some people in rural areas reportedly dying of constipation after eating wild fruits normally eaten by animals. It cited medical authorities as saying in Lupane alone, about 10 people had died after they ate meat from cattle-infected with anthrax.

Although the official Press seemed to have extensively sourced MDC voices as shown in Fig. 2, these were mostly quoted in the context of portraying them as confused while other alternative voices were predominantly used to reinforce government's position on the country's political and socio-economic issues.

Fig 2: Voice distribution in the Press

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