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Weekly Media Update 2010-2
Monday January 18th - Sunday January 24th 2010
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe
January 29, 2010

Comment: Was ZMC a victim of 'horse-trading'?
The authorities' professed commitment to genuine media reforms as promised under the Global Political Agreement suffered another blow during the week following renewed accusations of manipulation in the selection process for nominations to the board of the Zimbabwe Media Council (ZMC).

The Zimbabwe Independent and SW Radio Africa (22/1) reported that Harare publishing consultant Roger Stringer had written to Speaker of Parliament Lovemore Moyo - chairperson of Parliament's Standing Rules and Orders Committee (SROC) that conducted the public interviews last August - challenging him to clarify the selection of nominees after accusing the committee of "political horse-trading" during the exercise.

Reportedly, Stringer had been ranked sixth out of the 27 prospective candidates for the ZMC but had his name removed from the final list of 12 candidates submitted to President Mugabe from which he recently appointed eight commissioners as required under the Constitution. Instead, ZANU PF official and former Zimbabwe ambassador to China, Chris Mutsvangwa, who was said to have failed to make it into the final 12, was appointed to the commission.

The Independent quoted Stringer saying although the selection of the commissioners had been "promoted as an objective, independent process, it appears to have ended up being politically driven".

He added: "While I am aware that parliament was under no legal obligation to follow the procedures that it chose, the fact remains that the SROC undertook to invite members of the public to be considered for nomination according to a specified selection process."

MMPZ subscribes to Stringer's request that Parliament owes Zimbabweans "an explanation of what took place" especially given the delays and political bickering over the composition of the ZMC, and not least, the continued dithering over constituting the commission that has delayed its work of registering new papers.

As the Independent observed, the issue of setting up offices and a secretariat for the ZMC is likely to further delay the licensing of new newspapers, effectively suffocating genuine efforts to lay the foundation of a vibrant and diverse media ahead of the anticipated constitutional referendum and national elections.

The most popular stories
The stories attracting the most media attention during the week were on political developments in government and the constitutional reform exercise. (See Fig 1).

Fig 1: Topical stories in the print and electronic media

Milliband gaffe sparks official media propaganda blitz
British Foreign Secretary David Milliband's ill-considered remarks that Britain would take a cue from the MDC, among other factors, in lifting its targeted sanctions against ZANU PF's ruling elite and its associates in the British House of Commons provided the bedrock for a frenzy of propaganda in the official media.

His comments were the focus of 27 of the 57 news stories, editorials and opinion pieces the government media carried on political developments holding back the implementation of the power-sharing agreement.

However, they were almost exclusively used to strengthen ZANU PF's claims that:

• The MDC had campaigned for the imposition of the sanctions;
• The party was in control of the British government's decisions on the issue; and
• The MDC was solely responsible for the current political deadlock by allegedly refusing to lobby for their removal.

This propaganda blitz included editorials and opinion pieces that aggressively and dishonestly incited hatred and disaffection against the MDC formation led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. For example, the Sunday Mail's editorial (24/1) argued that Milliband's comments proved the MDC-T were "treacherous", "deceptive", "two-faced" "Western puppets" "culpable for the horrendous damage (sanctions had) inflicted on Zimbabwe . . . "
The false allegations and inflammatory rhetoric contained in this editorial (and others) rekindled the hostile and offensive propaganda against the MDC that characterized the content of the state-controlled media during the 2008 election campaigns and will surely damage Zimbabweans' hopes that the GPA is a workable coalition government. Such editorial material of course, also violates the terms of the GPA that calls for an end to the use of such "hate language".

The private media were, notably, conspicuously silent on Milliband's comments. The Standard (24/1), Zimdaily (20/1) and New Zimbabwe.com (23/1) only referred to them briefly and without analysis. They only emphasised problems in the power-sharing talks, which they largely blamed on alleged ZANU PF intransigence.

For the record, here is what Milliband actually said: "I do not think it is right to say that the choice is between lifting all the sanctions and lifting none at all. We have to calibrate our response to the progress on the ground, and, above all to be guided by what the MDC says to us about the conditions under which it is working and leading the country" (The Herald & Chronicle, 22/1).

Constitutional reform paralysed
None of the public media's 45 stories on constitutional reforms gave a holistic picture of the paralysis affecting efforts to rewrite the country's supreme law.

Twelve of their stories blamed the "suspension" of the outreach programme on meddling by the West and civil society, while 13 reported it as proceeding smoothly. Only 10, mostly on administrative issues, were fairly presented. The rest were general stories on the process.

The private media gave a more accurate perspective of the problems affecting the constitutional reform initiative (in their 19 stories), which they attributed to inadequate funding and political bickering (Studio 7, The Zimbabwe Times & The Standard, 21 & 24/1).

They also exposed the ugly side of the exercise where members of the Zimbabwe National Army were reportedly coercing villagers into supporting the adoption of the Kariba Draft Constitution as a basis for rewriting the constitution (two incidents).

Who was the most heard?
Predictably, the most popular voices in the government media were from ZANU PF, while the MDC-T dominated the private media, (Fig 2).

The most quoted individual in the official media was ZANU PF's constitutional select committee co-chairperson Paul Mangwana, who was quoted 13 times commenting on the process of rewriting the constitution. He was followed by - you guessed it - David Milliband (five times), followed by ZANU PF's spokesman Ephraim Masawi (four times) responding to Milliband's comments.

In the private media, Mangwana's counterpart, MDC-T's Douglas Mwonzora and fellow party official Nelson Chamisa, were the most quoted (four times each), once again reflecting the polarized nature of the public and private media.

Fig 2. Voices in the media on topical issues

Missing stories

• The government media censored evidence given by Peter Hitschmann, chief state witness in the terrorism trial of MDC treasurer-general, Roy Bennett, details of his torture and that he sold ammunition to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (ZimOnline & The Independent, 21 & 22/1); and,
• South Africa's official protest to the Zimbabwe government about the invasion of farms owned by South Africans was also missing in the government media. The Zimbabwean On Sunday (24/1) was one of the first to report this news.

Rights abuses censored

The government media censored reports of human rights violations. These only found expression in the private media, which featured 12 stories on the issue.

They included:

• Alleged death threats against freelance journalist Stanley Kwenda by a senior police official (SW Radio Africa & The Zimbabwean, 10 & 21/1);
• The arrest of three people, including journalist Andrison Manyere, for participating in a WOZA protest against decay in the education sector (SW Radio Africa &The Zimbabwean, 18 & 21/1); and,
• The harassment of Rusape farmer Koos Smit by suspected ZANU PF youths and his subsequent arrest for allegedly refusing to vacate his State-acquired farm (SW Radio Africa & The Zimbabwean On Sunday, 22 & 24/1).

Did you know?

That:

• After the 2008 elections, the number of seats in the House of Assembly was increased from 210 to 214 in line with Constitutional Amendment 19;
• All by-elections are long overdue in contravention of the Constitution and the Electoral Act;
• Four MPs have been suspended from the House of Assembly and lost their voting rights;
• Ten parliamentary vacancies have occurred through deaths (House of Assembly, six, and Senate, four;
• Three parliamentary seats remain vacant due to appointments; and
• Although the only independent MP, Jonathan Moyo, has rejoined ZANU PF, he has kept his seat.

In all, at least 13 House of Assembly constituencies are now unrepresented in Parliament, which means that tens of thousands of voters have no influence on the country's legislature. But if you relied on the domestic media, you probably wouldn't know about this. However, a 'Bill Watch' (2/2010) report by parliamentary watchdog Veritas, gives precise details on the changes to the voting strength of the coalition parties in Parliament and how these are likely to affect important legislation.

What they said . . .

"The land audit is the biggest impediment to the smooth function of the inclusive government...MDC is very clear, it was formed to fight the land resettlement programme. The land audit creates a big danger to the welfare of this country. It is going to create another war in this country" - ZANU PF "analyst" Goodson Nguni (ZTV, 20/1, 8pm).

"Are these (power-sharing) issues (RBZ governor Gideon Gono and Attorney-General Johannes Tomana) so fundamental that we cannot move without resolving them? Can we park them and proceed!" - South African President Jacob Zuma (The Herald, 18/1).

"These sanctions are hampering national stability and development. Anyone who refuses to accept this self-evident truth is an enemy of Zimbabwe and has no place in national politics" - The Sunday Mail editorial (24/1).

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