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Weekly Media Update 2009-13
Monday March 30th - Sunday April 5th 2009
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
April 10, 2009

1. General Comment

Nothing more clearly illustrates the continued abuse of the public media by senior government officials linked to ZANU PF than The Herald's coverage of Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono's address to parliamentarians during which he defended his controversial quasi-fiscal policies that were partly to blame for the country's economic collapse.

Instead of critically examining his statements, the paper published four stories between Friday April 3rd and Wednesday April 8th 2009 merely regurgitating his justification of his discredited activities during the ZANU PF government's reign.

For example, The Herald (3/4) supinely reported Gono dismissing private media reports alleging that he ran "a parallel government" prior to the formation of the inclusive government, arguing that "everything he did" then was "above board" and "within the confines of the Reserve Bank Act".

There was no attempt to relate such dishonest statements to documented evidence of his abuse of money from the Global Fund and his raids on Foreign Currency Accounts belonging to exporters and NGOs, among other irregular activities. Neither did the paper seek independent corroboration of the legitimacy of his claims that he was merely executing his mandate as stipulated by the law governing operations of the central bank. Nor did it test the veracity of his allegations that if "what (he) did had not been done, we would not be where we are today" but in a worse position.

The paper even reproduced his speech over six days, gobbling acres of space that could have been devoted to more important news and informative analysis of the new government's performance.

Similarly, Spot FM (2/3) changed its mid-morning programming to accommodate the live broadcast of Gono's more than one-and-a-half-long address, which it repeated that same evening.

Notably, none of the MDC government officials have been given such lavish attention. In fact, the official media broke with tradition by not publishing the full texts of maiden parliamentary speeches by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his deputy Arthur Mutambara for the benefit of their audiences, something they have always done whenever President Mugabe and other ZANU PF government officials issue pertinent national statements.

It is such blatant abuse of the public media that vindicates calls for urgent media law reforms that would help Zimbabweans' to reclaim the public media so as to ensure that they fully adhere to their mandate of serving the interests of all citizens.

It is to be hoped that the media reforms pledged by the inclusive government will deal with such abuses, which constitute a clear violation of Article 19 of the GPA under which the parties agreed to "ensure that the public media provides balanced and fair coverage to all political parties".

2. The public and private Press

Growing anxiety over the inclusive government's ability to fully reform and successfully spearhead the restoration of Zimbabwe's battered economy and poor human rights record continued to excite debate in the Press as shown in Fig. 1.

Fig 1: Topical issues in the Press

However, the government papers avoided open discussions of the matter, preferring only to dwell on the modest economic gains made by the new government while ignoring those developments that continue to undermine its effectiveness.

For example, while they highlighted the dollarization of the economy, easing of foreign exchange controls, return of goods to supermarket shelves and pledges of regional and international support for the country as representing progress, they censored and even defended the dangers posed to the coalition government by ongoing violations of the Global Political Agreement.

The Herald and Chronicle (31/3), for example, praised SADC's promise to assist Zimbabwe to raise the US$8,3 billion it requires to jump-start the economy without questioning the region's capacity to do so, especially considering international donors' insistence on genuine reforms by the new government before they offer the greatly needed budget support.

In fact, the government papers even attempted to dismiss as baseless donors' demands for media, political and human rights reforms, with The Herald and Chronicle (31/3) falsely claiming that there were "no known cases of intimidation of the media" in the country. In addition, they also quoted the government denying the existence of political prisoners despite the continued detention of MDC activists and others on what are widely believed to be spurious banditry and terrorism charges.

Instead, the official papers used the ministerial retreat - meant to devize strategies of implementing the new government's economic recovery plan - as evidence that both ZANU PF and the two MDC formations were working smoothly together and "getting to know each other well". However, no attempt was made to relate this to Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's call for the immediate resolution of all outstanding issues such as the appointment of provincial governors, permanent secretaries, the Reserve Bank governor and the Attorney-General (The Herald, 4/4).
The government papers published five stories relating to human rights violations, none of which were incidents. The stories were mostly about the authorities denying the existence of rights violations in the country.

In contrast, the private Press continued to highlight the problems dogging the inclusive government, among them fresh farm invasions and ongoing human rights violations.

They emphasized that unless the inclusive government addressed these problems the international community was unlikely to support Zimbabwe's economic revival programmes. For example, they cited how President Mugabe had hardened attitudes in the West by allowing party supporters to disrupt commercial farming under the guise of his ongoing controversial land reforms.

These papers also noted that most Western countries were not in a position to provide substantial aid to Zimbabwe due to the global credit crunch while SADC, with the exception of South Africa and Botswana, lacked financial capacity to help the country.

The private papers presented the country's socio-economic crises as far from over. Although they noted the availability of goods and the stabilisation of prices, they also cited the continued poor living standards, low production and poor service delivery, among important indicators of continuing economic decay.

In addition, they published 13 stories on human rights violations, which recorded five new incidents. These included the alleged victimization of three prison officers for publicly denouncing ZANU PF and the alleged shooting of a member of the Anglican Church by the police.

Fig 2: Voice distribution in the Press

3. ZBC and private radio stations

This week the broadcast media remained attentive to the new government's activities, particularly its efforts to resuscitate the country's ailing socio-economic sectors. See Fig. 3.

Fig 3: Topical stories on ZBC and private radio stations

ZBC however, continued to distort and suffocate obstacles to the new government's march towards economic reconstruction. For instance, it dishonestly portrayed the West's demands for comprehensive democratic reforms as preconditions for financial support as being an unreasonable ploy to sabotage the inclusive government's activities.

Rather than providing substantive evidence to support this notion, which it has repeatedly projected as the sole problem threatening the effectiveness of the new administration, it censored the real reasons that have scuttled this crucial foreign budgetary support: the evident breaches of the Global Political Agreement (GPA).

In line with this professional deceit, it narrowly presented news of a Ministerial Retreat in Victoria Falls to discuss the implementation of the government's reconstruction plans as evidence of the parties' unquestionable commitment to the GPA, while presenting SADC's pledge to support Zimbabwe's economic recovery as yet another show of confidence in the country's new authority by regional and international institutions.

ZTV (30/3, 8pm), for example, celebrated SADC's promise to help Zimbabwe raise US$8,3 billion for its economic renewal without examining the regional countries' financial capacities, especially in view of their own internal economic difficulties. Neither did it assess SADC's chances of success in lobbying the West to lift its targeted sanctions against the ZANU PF leadership given its continued intransigence.

Subsequently, ZTV (2/4, 7am) then used the Cabinet retreat as evidence of a cohesive government, quoting Prime Minister Tsvangirai justifying the workshop saying it would "provide the country with a clear economic turnaround programme" without asking him how he thought this would be achieved.

Neither did Spot FM (2/4, 1pm) reconcile Tsvangirai's appeal to Western donors to assist Zimbabwe as "there was no need for them to doubt reforms that were being embarked on" with continued undemocratic practices mirrored by illegal farm seizures and the continued detention of MDC activists, which the broadcaster denied existed in its five stories on human rights violations.

Although ZBC recorded several indicators of the country's socio-economic problems, such as the high cost of living and poor service delivery, it did not view them as symptoms of unrelenting problems facing the new government.

The private radio stations presented a different picture altogether.

They noted that while the coalition authority had registered some measure of success as reflected by commodity price reductions and the reopening of schools and hospitals, continued human rights violations and farm occupations severely undermined its efforts to convince the international community to support its economic recovery programmes.

SW Radio Africa (2/4), for example, quoted former MDC MP Job Sikhala accusing ZANU PF and the two MDC formations of "not moving fast enough to restore the rule of law," which he argued made it difficult for the West to provide financial aid to the country.

The stations aired 12 stories on rights violations, which recorded two fresh incidents of farm invasions in Chiredzi and Chegutu by ZANU PF officials.

The rest were either follow-ups to previous rights abuses or the authorities' denials of rights violations in Zimbabwe.
For example, SW Radio Africa (2/4) recorded Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa denying the authenticity of an SABC Special Assignment report documenting the inhumane conditions in Zimbabwe's prisons saying: "The pictures were taken in other jails in Africa not in Zimbabwe".

Fig 4: Voice distribution on ZBC and private stations

4. Online Publications

The inclusive government's economic interventions were also topical in the private online publications. See Fig 5.

Fig 5: Topical stories on online news agencies

Like the rest of the private media, they highlighted the new government's failure to democratize and fully implement provisions of the GPA as the main obstacles to its concerted efforts to raise funds to restart the economy.

The Zimbabwe Times (3/4), for example, reported the G20 countries as having resolved not to assist Zimbabwe until President Mugabe rescinded his unilateral appointment of central bank governor Gideon Gono, whose policies the online agency blamed for the country's economic problems. It dismissed Gono's attempts to absolve himself (over six days in the government-controlled press) as "a feeble attempt to justify his rapacious minting of cash to bankroll Mugabe and ZANU-PF's profligate spending".

Their coverage of the human rights violations was also similar to that of other private media.

Fig 6: Online agencies - Voice distribution

What they said . . .

"And now the MDC suddenly calls the murderous Mugabe "Comrade" and they go on a jaunt at Vic Falls, calling it a retreat. Tsvangirai should show more sensitivity than this. The least he should do is to dress up all those so-called ministers into overalls and put them to work. The MDC has become a clone of ZANU-PF . . . " -Journalist Tanonoka Whande. SW Radio Africa, 1/4.

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