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Weekly Media Update 2009-21
Monday May 25th 2009 - Sunday May 31st 2009
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
June 05, 2009

General Comment

MMPZ condemns the attempt by the Zimbabwe Election Commission (ZEC) to present an entirely distorted perspective of the repressive media and political environment that prevailed during last year's elections. In its December 2008 report on the media's coverage of the elections presented to Parliament on May 13 this year, ZEC also ignored the government media's complete disregard for the Commission's own regulations regarding media coverage of elections and their disdain for professional journalistic standards as reflected in their coverage of the polls.

ZEC presented an wholly dishonest perspective of Zimbabwe's media environment by suggesting that the country's electorate had access to "diverse" news outlets as reflected by the fact that there were more than "85 registered and operating newspapers and magazines" at the time of the elections.

It claimed: "This plurality . . . entailed diverse opinions finding space through the various media outlets operating in the country". Nothing could be further from the truth! It named some of these outlets as being magazines such as the New Farmer, Trends and The Zimbabwe Travel. But it is a fact that these are mainly trade and leisure publications with insignificant circulation figures - if indeed they were published at all - that also never cover hard news, and especially never carry any useful or contemporary information relating to elections. This utterly deceitful effort by ZEC to claim such outlets contributed to providing the "diversity of opinions" it refers to in its report represents a shamefully crude attempt to distort the truth about the country's blighted newspaper market, which is overwhelmingly dominated by five titles under the government-controlled Zimpapers stable. These comprise two dailies (The Herald, Chronicle), which enjoy a national monopoly of the daily print market following the banning of the country's most popular daily in 2003, and three weekly papers.

According to MMPZ's monitoring of these papers during last year's election campaigns, they tore up their public service mandate by slavishly campaigning for ZANU PF and maligning the party's main political opponents, the MDC, making them accomplices in the subversion of Zimbabwe's democratic environment.

While the ZEC report did refer to the aggressive nature of the material appearing in the government-controlled papers citing The Herald as being "hard-hitting on the opposition", it pretended to suggest this happened in a media environment where "diverse opinions" proliferated instead of the suffocating government monopolies of the domestic daily print and broadcasting markets created by the country's repressive media laws.

The report also only made a contrite reference to The Herald's primary role in propagating the proliferation of offensive and inflammatory messages that characterized the government print media output by stating that the paper "refrained, just marginally, from hate speech" and only "occasionally" referred to MDC-T supporters and officials as "thugs, puppets and sell-outs".

MMPZ's own findings however, clearly exposes this attempt to exonerate the government media's culpability in propagating such inflammatory, abusive and intimidating language as downright fraudulent. The government print media particularly allowed themselves to be used as messengers of hatred and intolerance expressed by ZANU PF loyalists, and instead of condemning the offending statements, endorsed and amplified them in their news pages.

ZEC also ignored the national broadcaster's total monopoly of all domestic television and radio broadcasting. Despite ZBC's overwhelming support for ZANU PF during the polls, the Commission dishonestly claimed the broadcaster generally "complied" with its regulations on reporting elections during the March 2008 harmonised elections and made a "commendable effort" to "have panellists from the two contesting political parties . . . participate in discussion programmes" ahead of the June presidential run-off.

It is public knowledge that there was no semblance of balance on ZBC ahead of the June elections as the broadcaster swamped its audiences with ZANU PF propaganda in its news bulletins and current affairs programmes. In the rare cases where the MDC-T was featured, ZBC moderators and pro-ZANU PF panellists ganged up against it rendering its contributions meaningless. Sadly, the media have allowed this extraordinary ZEC deceit to pass without robust scrutiny.

The Public and Private Press

The Press remained engrossed in the drawn-out disagreements in the coalition government over a holistic settlement of outstanding issues under the Global Political Agreement (GPA), which have severely blunted its political and socio-economic reform agenda. (See Fig 1.)

Fig 1: Topical issues in the print media

However, the government papers deliberately confused the situation on the ground by adopting a wholly biased approach in which they only marketed ZANU PF's perspective of the GPA while trivializing that of the MDC and independent observers. Accordingly, they defended ZANU PF's violations of the GPA, particularly its vehement refusal to reverse the unilateral appointments of RBZ governor Gideon Gono and Attorney-General Johannes Tomana.

The Herald and Chronicle (26 & 27/5), for example, merely reported on a chorus of ZANU PF voices comprising President Mugabe, the party's senior officials and affiliate organisations, such as the war veterans, and Air Vice-Marshall Henry Muchena, defending Gono's appointment without reporting it as an affront to the power-sharing deal. Neither did they question ZANU PF's reasons for keeping Gono on as governor nor publicised the MDC's indignant reaction.

For example, The Herald (27/5) passively quoted Muchena warning against Gono's removal, saying the Zimbabwe Defence Forces "were solidly behind" the RBZ governor. It quoted him: "Tokumbirisa mapoliticians . . . regai maState institutions tiite basa. Pamunenge muchiita basa renyu hatipindire wani . . . Mukada kuti paradzanisa (naGono) tinozokurambirai isu tisingafanire kukurambirai. (We beg of you politicians . . . let state institutions do their jobs. We do not interfere in your jobs. If you meddle in ours we might be forced to resist, something we are not supposed to do.)"'

The papers also resorted to conspiracy theories in which they simply amplified ZANU PF's claims that agitation for the dismissal of Gono and Tomana were at the behest of the West in its relentless bid to illegally remove ZANU PF from power. The Sunday Mail (31/5), for example, carried a conspiracy story that widely quoted Gono alleging that the US and MDC had tried to induce him and "four" other ZANU PF officials with bribes of up to US$10,5m for them to leave office. No evidence was provided, nor were the MDC and the US given the right of reply.

Consequently, no correlation was made of ZANU PF's violations of the GPA with the international community's continued reluctance to offer the new government budget funding until real political reforms had been achieved. Instead, they presented the West's targeted sanctions against ZANU PF's ruling elite and its cronies as the sole impediment to the effectiveness of the coalition. They carried 29 reports that gave this impression.

The official Press also published six stories, five of which were editorials, criticizing the West for being divisive by channelling reconstruction aid through the MDC-run ministries and boosting their political fortunes at the expense of ZANU PF. They did not seek balanced explanations for this.

Paradoxically, the government papers continued to give a twin portrayal of a recovering economy despite its illegal sanctions mantra. They cited Norway's provision of a US$ 10million rescue package to help revamp the health and education sectors, the EU's announcement that it was impressed with the country's economic progress, and COMESA's decision to hold its summit in Zimbabwe as evidence of the international community's growing confidence in the government's reconstruction programmes.

The papers carried five stories on human rights violations. They were mostly updates on court cases involving civil society and MDC activists accused of inciting public violence. One of these was on the acquittal of MDC-T Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Eric Matinenga on similar charges, which The Herald (28/5) buried on its second page, contrary to the prominence the official Press gave to his arrest.

Only the private papers gave space to the MDC-T's concerns over ZANU PF's reluctance to fully implement the GPA and highlighted the negative effects of such intransigence on the inclusive government. Although they admitted to growing Western interest in the country's reconstruction, they viewed Mugabe's refusal to reverse the controversial appointments of Gono and Tomana and the slow progress in instituting democratic reforms as militating against this. The papers also criticized the security chiefs for interfering in the country's political affairs by defending ZANU PF in its dispute with the MDC over Gono's appointment.

The Zimbabwe Independent (29/5), for instance, argued that the service chief's stance vindicated concerns that they were partisan and unprofessional. It asserted that it was "unheard of in most democracies . . . for the security forces to make their opinions public on political disputes".

The private papers carried eight reports on rights violations. Most of these were on the acquittal of Matinenga.

Fig 2: Voice distribution in the Press

ZBC and private radio stations

The row between ZANU PF and the MDC over the positions of Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono and Attorney-General Johannes Tomana and its implications on the coalition government's efforts to revive the economy dominated the broadcast media. See Fig 3.

Fig 3: Topical issues on ZBC and private stations

However, ZBC suffocated the reasons behind the MDC-T's disapproval of President Mugabe's unilateral appointment of the two officials with reports that defended the decision while depicting those against it as agents of Western imperialism and an illegal regime change plot.

ZBC (25/5, main bulletins), for example, passively quoted Mugabe reiterating that he would not rescind the appointments because they were done according to the law, arguing that those who called for Gono's removal were "wasting their time" because he "played a crucial role in fighting illegal sanctions".

The broadcaster allowed this to pass without noting that the governor's appointment violated the Global Political Agreement (GPA). Neither did it question the plausibility of retaining Gono given his widely criticized quasi-fiscal policies, believed to have contributed to Zimbabwe's economic collapse, and the donors' demands for his removal as a precondition for aid.

Instead, the next day ZBC (8pm) passively quoted Air Vice-Marshall Henry Muchena, war veterans and some church leaders rallying behind Gono, portraying calls for his removal as aimed at destabilizing the inclusive government.

The MDC-T was never allowed to express its concerns. The broadcaster also declined to view the dispute as another sign of deepening policy conflicts and power struggles within the coalition. It was against this background that ZBC censored Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's concerns over ZANU PF's reluctance to fully implement the GPA while addressing his party's ninth annual conference. It mainly focused on the election of some senior party officials. Otherwise, the rest of ZBC's stories on the inclusive government portrayed it as a success, citing as evidence the continued pledges of financial assistance by some regional and Western countries. The broadcaster's coverage of the country's socio-economic troubles was equally unhelpful. For instance, it celebrated the decline in the rate of inflation and the availability of basic commodities as indicative of government's success while avoiding interpreting persisting poor service delivery, infrastructural decay and labour unrest as evidence of the authorities' ineffective interventions.

The private radio stations were more analytical. They condemned Mugabe's refusal to annul his appointment of Gono and Tomana saying it exposed his disdain for the GPA. They quoted commentators contending that Mugabe's stance and threats by war veterans' leader Joseph Chinotimba to unleash violence on farms if Gono was removed, would cripple government's efforts to renew the economy, which depended on the full implementation of the political pact.

The stations also reported the country's socio-economic situation as still precarious, more than 100 days after the government's inauguration. As examples, they cited food deficits in some provinces, persisting poor service delivery and the humanitarian crisis bedeviling the country's prisons.

Their eight stories on human rights abuses were also reported in the context of highlighting government's failure to fully implement the GPA. Of these, three new incidents stemmed from the alleged abduction of a pastor in Harare by suspected state security agents for assisting victims of last year's electoral violence; the arrest of a white commercial farmer in Mutare and the alleged assault of another one in Chegutu by suspected ZANU PF supporters. The rest were follow-ups.

Fig 4: Voice distribution on ZBC and private radios

Online Publications

The private online agencies also focused on the deepening conflict over Gono and Tomana's appointments, which, they noted, distracted government from tackling the country's socio-economic problems.

Fig 5: Topical stories on online news agencies

However, while the agencies reported several commentators agreeing with the MDC-T's calls for the speedy resolution of outstanding issues, such as the removal of Gono, The Zimbabwe Times (31/5) cited economist Eric Bloch arguing that the embattled governor "should be allowed to continue to lead the RBZ" because "he is a genius".

The agencies also noted that while the government had registered some success on the economic front as acknowledged by the MDC-T and some Western countries, there was still need for comprehensive political reforms.
Their three stories on rights violations were similar to those carried by the private radios.

Fig 6: Online agencies - Voice distribution

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