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Weekly Media Update 2009-25
Monday June 15th - Sunday June 21st 2009
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
July 26, 2009

General Comment
MMPZ notes with concern the unprofessional manner in which the government papers have been covering the proceedings of recent court trials involving MDC officials and civic activists.

Instead of providing complete, fair and balanced coverage of the proceedings, the papers have frequently highlighted the State's prosecution evidence while suffocating evidence from the defence. At times these papers - and the national broadcaster - have even censored news of entire court hearings, particularly those cases that reflect badly on the State.

Their censoring of the recent admission in the High Court by the Attorney-General's office that human rights activist Jestina Mukoko had been abducted and illegally detained by state security agents, is the latest example of such unprofessional conduct.

Only those with access to the private media (SW Radio Africa, 25/6 and the Zimbabwe Independent, 26/6) were given news of this important development.

Apart from the obvious suspicion that these media are deliberately suffocating unflattering news about the activities of state security agencies, their blackout of the news in this case clearly constitutes a violation of basic court reporting procedures that require news organizations to report fully, fairly and to finality, on the progress of the trials to which they have given previous publicity.

In another recent case, the government media only covered a High Court ruling granting four freelance journalists the right to practice journalism without government accreditation in the context of the authorities' appeal against the ruling.

For example, The Herald's story (06/6) was pushed to the bottom of page two under the headline, 'State to appeal accreditation ruling'. While it reported briefly on the journalists' argument and the judge's ruling granting temporary relief against any interference from Media ministry officials and the chairman of the defunct Media and Information Commission, it did not do justice to the successful argument or the reasons for the judge's ruling. Instead, it led its story with a statement from the MIC's lawyers.

Once the appeal was lodged, The Sunday Mail, which did not report the original story, provided a lengthy report of the government's grounds for its appeal (28/6) incidentally, claiming that the old MIC still existed as the Zimbabwe Media Commission as contained in the provisions of the amended Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. The story contained very little news about the journalists' arguments against accreditation or Justice Bharat Patel's ruling.

Similarly, the government media have not provided consistent or fair and balanced accounts of the proceedings in the trial of MDC-T MP for Mutare West Shuah Mudiwa over the kidnapping of a 12-year old girl. For example, The Herald's report on Mudiwa's conviction (1/7) simply reported that he and two others were convicted on "overwhelming evidence" while its earlier reports have never clearly reported what that evidence was, nor provided details of the evidence in court supporting the defence's claim that the offence was a fabrication.

Similarly inconsistent reports have appeared in the official media's coverage of the court proceedings of MDC-T Kwekwe MP, Blessing Chebudo, who is facing charges of rape.

The Public and Private Press

Anxiety over the ramifications of fresh conflicts over constitutional reform and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's aid mobilisation efforts was reflected by the amount of space the print media devoted to the disputes. Fig. 1 illustrates this.

Fig 1: Topical news distribution in the print media

However, rather than provide useful information on the exact reasons why the coalition partners were bickering over the process to re-write the constitution or analyze its effects on government's political and economic reforms, the official papers simply propagated the ZANU PF perspective. For example, The Herald and Chronicle (26/6) passively quoted President Mugabe defiantly insisting that despite calls for a fresh consultative and people-driven process by the MDC and civic society, constitutional reform should only be based on the Kariba Draft, a document that reflected the political compromise between the country's three major political parties at the time it was drawn up in 2007.

According to Mugabe, " . . . takabvumirana tichisayinirana page-by-page saka hapana imwe constitution yatinoda isiri yeKariba [We all agreed on the contents of the draft and signed every page to affirm that. For that reason we do not accept any other constitution which is not the Kariba one".

There was no attempt to test this extraordinary demand against the provisions of Article Six of the Global Political Agreement outlining the agreed reform process.

Although the Chronicle (25/6) had carried a report earlier briefly highlighting divergent views from different political parties and civic organizations on constitutional reform, none of the official papers clearly reported on the MDC and civic society's reservations over adopting the Kariba Draft, let alone weighing the merits of their concern. Neither did they question the prudence of spending US$19 million on the constitutional reform process (as reported in The Sunday Mail, 28/6) if the controversial Kariba document was to be imposed upon the nation.

Instead, the government Press published four editorials endorsing Mugabe's position while accusing those against it as being agents of Western imperialism without providing any evidence for this tired allegation.

As if in preparation for Mugabe's statement, the official dailies (24/6) published supplements of the Kariba Draft without subjecting it to any analysis.

These papers also featured seven reports that continued to distort the objective of Tsvangirai's trip to the West and carried 12 editorials and opinion pieces that dishonestly presented his failure to raise substantial financial aid as confirmation of alleged Western machinations to force ZANU PF out of government through economic sanctions.

They claimed reforms were on track and presented the West's demands for the coalition to fulfill the democratic reforms outlined in the GPA as a precondition for assistance as a cover-up for its alleged sinister plots.

During the week these papers also censored incidents of continued human rights violations mainly blamed on state security agents and suspected ZANU PF supporters. All five stories they carried on the subject passively reported official denials of the problem.

The papers' 54 stories on the country's socio-economic crises were also reported in isolation of the scale of these problems and their inhibiting effect on economic recovery.

In contrast, the private Press cited independent commentators contending that problems besetting the coalition as reflected by disagreements over constitutional reform; continued human rights abuses; the vilification of Tsvangirai and his party by the state media; Mugabe's unilateral dispatch of a ZANU PF government delegation to the East to seek aid, and other outstanding disputes, all demonstrated ZANU PF's reluctance to reform.

For example, The Standard (28/6) quoted National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) chairman Lovemore Madhuku arguing that Mugabe was insisting on basing the new constitution on the Kariba Draft because it "eliminated many of the checks on presidential powers that were included in the Constitutional Draft rejected in 1999."

He added that Mugabe's position had rendered ongoing consultations on the matter a "mere formality" and "a sham" while vindicating his organisation's argument that politicians were not to be trusted with genuine constitutional reform.

The private papers also noted that even though the country's socio-economic situation had improved, basic goods and services remained unaffordable to most Zimbabweans with limited or no access to foreign currency.

Their 20 stories on rights violations were reported in the context of exposing the government's failure to abide by the democratic reforms envisaged in the political agreement.

One of these reports was a new incident stemming from the confiscation of Tsvangirai's newsletter by suspected ZANU PF supporters in Masvingo, while the rest were updates on court cases involving civic and political activists facing public violence and banditry charges.

Although the government papers' sourcing patterns appeared fairly balanced, the MDC was either quoted reinforcing the notion of a unified government or in stories that reflected negatively on its relations with the West.

Fig 2: Voice distribution in the print media

ZBC and private radio stations

Divisions between ZANU PF and the MDC over the framework for re-writing the constitution and debate over Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's failure to mobilize Western budgetary support to revive the country's shattered economy generated the most interest in the electronic media. See Fig. 3.

Fig 3: Topical issues on ZBC and private stations

ZBC however, failed to provide a balanced picture of these matters. For instance, it did not report on the MDC and civic society's disapproval of President Mugabe's demands that constitutional reform should only be undertaken in the context of the widely criticized Kariba Draft.

Instead, it blindly promoted Mugabe's position without even disclosing the contents of the draft or assessing if it met democratic standards. It was ZBC (24/6, 8pm) who first unquestioningly quoted Mugabe telling the ZANU PF central committee that the new constitution should be "guided" by the Kariba Draft because all the parties in the inclusive government "had agreed on that".

Without attempting to analyze the implications of his statements, ZBC merely quoted him adding that Parliament's job was simply "to take the draft to the people."

There was no attempt to reconcile his pronouncement with six other reports quoting MDC members of the parliamentary constitutional reform committee insisting that the process would be transparent and democratic.

ZBC also carried 33 stories that continued to misrepresent the purpose of Tsvangirai's "re-engagement" visit to Western nations as a failed mission to remove sanctions, and portrayed Western demands for democratic reforms as a prerequisite for budgetary support as part of their "illegal" regime-change agenda.

The three stories ZBC carried on rights abuses were all based on Mugabe's dismissal of a report by Amnesty International alleging ongoing human rights violations, which donors have cited as one of the indicators of government's reluctance to reform.

ZBC carried 51 stories on the country's socio-economic problems provided some insight into the extent of the decline in service delivery, productivity and infrastructural decay, but did not link these to the government's inability to institute effective economic reform.

In contrast, the private media reported the ZANU PF/MDC wrangles over constitutional reform, the vilification of the MDC-T by the public media and the persecution of its officials, and economic policy contradictions as evidence of sharp differences in the inclusive government that threaten its effectiveness.

SW Radio Africa and Studio 7 provided the MDC and civic society with platforms to express their reservations over the constitutional reform process and explain why Mugabe's demands were undemocratic.

SW Radio Africa (30/6) also reported Tsvangirai belying the impression created by the official media that Western demands for democratic reforms were unwarranted saying these were "not foreign benchmarks imposed from outside Zimbabwe, but are our own conditions that we committed ourselves to meeting when we signed the GPA . . . " He added: "The concerns of the international community" were "legitimate and the three political parties as the signatories to the GPA, and particularly the leaders of those parties, must take responsibility for the failure to implement fully the obligations we have signed up to".

Their four stories on the country's parlous socio-economic situation also highlighted policy clashes hampering government's reconstruction plans.

The stations aired 11 reports on human rights violations, which they used to illustrate government's failure to fully comply with the political agreement.

One of them was an incident emanating from the alleged harassment of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights' workers by state security agents for publishing a newsletter detailing cases the organization has handled.

The rest were updates on court cases involving civic and MDC activists facing political violence and banditry charges.

ZBC's bias was reflected by the amount of space they allocated to ZANU PF. Of the 53 coalition voices it cited, 24 (45%) were ZANU PF, 16 (30%) MDC-T and 13 (25%) MDC-M. In contrast, SW Radio Africa quoted more MDC-T voices, almost to the exclusion of other parties. See Fig 4.

Fig 4: Voice distribution on ZBC and private stations

Online news agencies
The private online publications also gave more publicity to problems threatening the durability of the transitional authority as mainly reflected by conflicts over the drafting of a new constitution.

Fig 5: Topical stories in the online agencies

Like private stations, they reported the MDC-T and civic organizations explaining their opposition to Mugabe's attempts to impose the Kariba Draft constitution and threatening to campaign against the move.
In addition, the agencies highlighted other problems plaguing the inclusive government such as policy contradictions; the denigration of the MDC-T by the state media and the persecution of its officials; and persisting human rights abuses.

Their 12 stories on rights violations were similar to those reported by the rest of the private media.

They gave more space to the MDC-T compared to its coalition partners.

Fig 6: Voice distribution on online agencies

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