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Weekly Media Update 2010-6
Monday February 15th - Sunday February 21st 2010
Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
February 26, 2010

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Mahoso's ghost resurfaces MMPZ welcomes the official appointment of commissioners to the Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC) and hopes that this will finally expedite the licensing of new newspapers.

The appointments, reportedly published in a Government Gazette on February 19 2010, come after almost a year of bickering among coalition partners over the form and scope of media reforms, including allegations of manipulation in the selection of the ZMC commissioners.

MMPZ trusts that the establishment of a secretariat to run the day-to-day activities of the ZMC will not fall victim to the same political squabbling and excessive bureaucracy that have paralysed the introduction of the "free media environment" proposed in the Global Political Agreement (GPA).

News that discredited former chairperson of the defunct Media and Information Commission, Tafataona Mahoso, had applied to head the secretariat, and that some ZMC commissioners, including commission chairman Godfrey Majonga and ZANU PF's Christopher Mutsvangwa were "already selling Mahoso's proposal to other commissioners" (The Zimbabwean, 18/2), does not instill confidence in the process. Neither does the retention of repressive media laws and the continuing use of extra-judicial methods by state security agents to curtail press freedom.

The arrest of a Mexican journalist in Masvingo just two days before the gazetting of the ZMC appointments, is testimony to this. New Zimbabwe (17/2), quoted Tourism Minister Walter Mzembi saying he was "extremely concerned" that the scribe, who was in his care, was arrested despite having been specially accredited by the authorities to make a documentary on tourist sites in southern Zimbabwe. Said Mzembi: "We approve a journalist from Mexico to go and film Masvingo and he was arrested... We cannot attract tourists if we do not look at our law and order."

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