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Weekly Media Update 2009-24
Monday June 15th - Sunday June 21st 2009
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
July 26, 2009

General Comment
The Sunday Mail (21/6) provided fresh evidence of the residual paranoia prevailing within government over the free flow of information that threatens to undermine the MDC's repeated promises to reform the media as envisaged in the Global Political Agreement.

The government-controlled weekly reported "highly placed government sources" telling the paper that the publication by the Prime Minister's Office during the week of a four-page tabloid newsletter reporting on the events of Morgan Tsvangirai's tour of the US and Europe had undermined Cabinet and threatened to provoke a clash between the two institutions.

The "sources" implied that the newsletter had broken the "Oath of Secrecy" because Tsvangirai had been "sent by Cabinet" on his mission and the newsletter contained details of his trip before he had briefed Cabinet about them.

In what was evidently a story designed to discredit the publication and encourage the threatened conflict, The Sunday Mail lied about the newsletter's 40,000 print-run by inflating it tenfold and then resorted to quoting an unnamed Midlands State University media studies lecturer commenting on its status with regard to the notorious Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. Under AIPPA newsletters were exempt from registration, but the lecturer was quoted saying " . . . by printing 400,000 copies . . . it is clear this is an organ of mass communication." This implied the newsletter needed to be registered under the law. But the paper made no effort to remind its readers that a recent High Court ruling declared that the Media and Information Commission set up under AIPPA as the registering authority, had been rendered a legal nullity following amendments made to the law in 2007.

The paper also allowed its "highly placed sources" to dishonestly suggest that the locally produced newsletter had betrayed information about Tsvangirai's tour to "American printers" before Cabinet had been briefed because "We are told USAID was involved in this publication."

George Charamba, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Media, Information and Publicity, was only quoted adding a sinister context to the story: "We have seen the publication . . . noted its circulation figures and we are looking at what the law says."

The newsletter does not explain why the Prime Minister's Office has found it necessary to produce its own publication, given the dominance of the existing government-controlled Press. However, it is presumably a response to the ongoing relentless distortion and censorship of Tsvangirai's activities and comments that still characterize the old government regime's media - as was so well illustrated by The Sunday Mail's story.

But while MMPZ sympathizes with the frustrations of trying to govern in a hostile media environment, the Project believes the MDC should not be attempting to circumvent these institutions by establishing parallel media structures to disseminate its own propaganda, however well-meaning.

By doing so, it is avoiding addressing a most urgent national responsibility.

As Geoff Nyarota, editor of The Zimbabwe Times online newspaper, observes in his blog about the newsletter this week:

"The major agenda of the MDC in its unique position as a partner in government . . . should be to dismantle the media behemoth built by Zanu-PF over the years . . .

"As a first priority, Zimbabwe expects the MDC to dismantle AIPPA, POSA and other restrictive legislation . . . It should seek to create an enabling media environment, while facilitating the establishment of truly independent media...

"A private newspaper for Tsvangirai cannot be the democratic change that the MDC has promised long-suffering Zimbabweans...

"What Zimbabwe needs is a free and democratic media environment, where newspapers and the electronic media operate within a context of genuine freedom, where they have free access to government news sources and enjoy the liberty to publish without let or hindrance; where journalists . . . are not regarded as enemies of the state."

The Public and Private Press

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's tour of Europe and the US as part of the fragile coalition government's efforts to persuade the West to fund its economic revival continued to attract intense debate in the print media. (See Fig. 1)

Fig 1: Topical news distribution in the print media

But while the private Press openly reported on Tsvangirai's trip and attributed his failure to raise significant financial support to government's superficial reforms that fell short of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) and the West's demands, the official papers simply peddled propaganda that completely distorted the purpose of the visit and the reasons behind its failed outcome.

Their news reports either suffocated some of Tsvangirai's meetings with Western leaders or selectively reported on them to reinforce their view that while he had personally failed in his Cabinet-given task to persuade the West to remove its alleged sanctions on Zimbabwe, which the papers claimed were unwarranted instruments for illegal regime change, he had used the trip to boost his party's political fortunes.

Without granting Tsvangirai or his party the right of reply, they then carried several opinion pieces by commentators expanding on this propaganda.

As a result, those who rely on these papers for their news received a distorted purpose for Tsvangirai's visit and equally distorted reasons why his trip had raised a pittance of the funds required to resuscitate the economy.

Otherwise, these papers fed their audiences with 20 articles that projected Western sanctions on Zimbabwe as the only hindrance to government's effectiveness, while the remaining 63 dishonestly interpreted the West's demands for genuine democratic reforms as a precondition for aid as simply a cover for its relentless machinations to remove ZANU PF from power and replace it with the MDC.

From this perspective The Herald and Chronicle (15/6), for instance, only reported on Tsvangirai's meeting with US President Barack Obama in the context of reporting the exclusion of ZANU-PF's Tourism Minister Walter Mzembi from the discussions. They accused the US president of "lacking diplomatic courtesy" and being "overtly biased" against ZANU PF and criticized his plans to channel US$73 million of humanitarian aid through NGOs, which they claimed were linked to the MDC-T.
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No evidence however, was provided to support this claim.

The Herald and The Sunday Mail published 10 opinion pieces and editorials that either magnified these unsubstantiated allegations, or used them as the basis to generate conspiracy stories against the West, Zimbabwean civil society, Tsvangirai and his party.

None of the articles acknowledged the fact that the failure by government to resolve the outstanding appointments of two senior government officials and fully implement other conditions of the GPA mainly relating to the rule of law and media reforms, especially by its ZANU PF arm, was the main source of its futile fund-raising efforts and disunity.

This reflected the perspective of the papers' news stories on the coalition.

For example, The Herald (19/6) sought to project the failure by the MDC and the West to lift sanctions and close "pirate radio stations" as the major outstanding issues, while The Sunday Mail (21/6) suggested that the publication of the Prime Minister's four-page newsletter represented a new threat to government stability. But both papers ignored Tsvangirai's statement in May that the unilateral appointment of senior government officials remained the most important outstanding dispute.

In the week of a visit to Zimbabwe by the head of the human rights watchdog, Amnesty International, both papers censored damning sections of the organization's report on continued human rights violations in the country and then dismissed AI's observations despite carrying stories that affirmed some of them, such as the arrest of WOZA activists in Harare for holding an "illegal" demonstration and the arrest and assault of a Herald photographer by the police for taking pictures of the event. None of the official papers reported these events as an indication of the persistent rights violations still plaguing Zimbabwean society.

Their stories on the country's socio-economic malaise were equally divorced from government's partial implementation of the GPA.

The private Press provided a more useful perspective of Tsvangirai's visit to the US and Europe.

They noted that continued assaults on media freedom, political detentions and farm invasions, among others, underlined Western countries' skepticism over government's willingness to reform.

These papers dismissed official claims that sanctions were the sole hindrance to government's effectiveness, noting that power struggles that manifested themselves in policy contradictions and failure to resolve outstanding senior government appointments were the main threats to government unity.

Of their 15 stories on rights violations, four were new incidents stemming from the assault and arrest of WOZA activists, an alleged assassination attempt on Mashonaland Central governor Martin Dinha by unknown assailants, and the police barring planned marches by gender activists in Harare.

Although the government papers' appeared to give statistically equitable coverage to ZANU PF and the MDC-T in their sourcing patterns, publicity for the MDC-T appeared mostly in the context of vilifying the party as an instrument of the West's illegal regime change agenda and responsible for the sanctions allegedly crippling the country. The 10 unnamed sources they quoted were also used in this context.

It was only in the private Press that the party's position was fairly articulated.

Fig 2: Voice distribution in the print media

ZBC and private radio stations

The electronic media also debated Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's visit to the West to mobilize financial aid to tackle the country's myriad socio-economic problems. See Fig. 3.

Fig 3: Topical issues on ZBC and private stations

However, instead of informing its audiences honestly about his First World safari and explaining why it had yielded little results, ZBC simply attacked the West for demanding democratic reforms before providing financial support for government's reconstruction plans. It presented these demands as racist and hinged on the alleged Western crusade to overthrow ZANU PF.

Radio Zimbabwe (18/6, 6am), for example, passively reported the ZANU PF politburo describing as "divisive" the West's refusal to "either lift sanctions or offer meaningful assistance to the unity government".

The station did not ask the party how the West's demands for GPA compliance threatened government unity.

ZBC's reluctance to report fairly on the West's concerns over government's hesitant reforms resulted in ZTV (16/6, 8pm) reporting Germany's calls for democratization, including an end to farm invasions, only in the context of comments by ZANU PF officials masquerading as 'political analysts'. The 'analysts', Themba Mliswa and William Mutomba, were quoted dismissing Germany's conditions as 'racist' and an attempt to "reverse" land reforms.

ZBC (17/6, 8pm) also used the comments of outgoing US Ambassador James McGee that America would maintain its sanctions on Zimbabwe until there were real democratic reforms, to reinforce unsubstantiated claims that Western sanctions were responsible for paralyzing government programmes.

Apart from six reports celebrating provisions of modest financial aid by Denmark and Norway, which it claimed was "unconditional" budgetary support, the broadcaster's remaining stories about the Prime Minister's tour prominently reported selective statements Tsvangirai made glossing over the cracks in government, and especially those which reflected positively on President Mugabe's commitment to the coalition.

The broadcaster's coverage of the country's socio-economic crises mirrored by poor service delivery, dilapidated infrastructure and low productivity was piecemeal and detached from government's economic reconstruction programmes.

ZBC's 13 stories on human rights violations avoided examining the implications of continued rights abuses on government's durability and its aid mobilization efforts. One of the reports was a fresh incident stemming from an alleged assassination attempt on Mashonaland Central governor Martin Dinha, while the rest were based on ZANU PF government officials' statements dismissing the existence of problems in the country.

The private radio stations provided a more informative insight into Tsvangirai's trip because they provided him with a platform to explain its purpose; carried almost daily updates on his meetings with Western leaders and their response to his appeal for financial support.

The private stations also quoted independent commentators noting that the prevailing political and media repression vindicated donor countries' skepticism.

The stations covered the country's socio-economic crises and ongoing human rights violations in the context of them illustrating government's failure to comply with the terms of the GPA. They carried 13 stories on rights violations, three of which were new incidents emanating from the arrest of WOZA activists in Harare and Bulawayo for allegedly holding "illegal" demonstrations; the alleged harassments of suspected MDC supporters in rural areas by ZANU PF militia, and the arrest of MDC-T director-general Toendepi Shonhe on perjury charges.

The rest were follow-ups on court cases involving civic activists and journalists and Amnesty International's unflattering observations on the country's "precarious" human rights situation.

Although ZBC appeared to give space to all parties as shown in Fig 4, the MDC-T voices were largely quoted in the context of portraying the inclusive government as a workable arrangement.

Fig 4: Voice distribution on ZBC and private stations

Online news agencies
The private online agencies also focused on Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's trip to the West. (See Fig. 5).

Fig 5: Topical stories in the online agencies

They updated their audiences on Tsvangirai's meetings with Western leaders and the reasons why his trip had failed to raise substantial amounts of aid.

They reported analysts dismissing official claims that sanctions were the only hindrance to the coalition's progress, saying the prolonged disputes over the appointments of Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono and Attorney-General Johannes Tomana, and the persistent power struggles were, in fact, the main cause of government paralysis.

The agencies' 10 stories on rights violations were similar to those recorded by the private stations.

Fig 6: Voice distribution on online agencies

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