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Weekly Media Update 2010 - 18
The Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe
Monday, May 10th - Sunday, May 16th 2010
May 21, 2010

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Comment

Dispute exposes 'political' structure of ZMC

News of disagreements within the new Zimbabwe Media Commission over the issue of resource persons for a "workshop" organized to facilitate the registration of new media operators exposes the politically compromised nature of an organization that is supposed to be free of political influence and bodes ill for the coalition government's media reform agenda.

While the latest news in The Financial Gazette (20/5) reported that the commission was expected to announce the successful applicants on the last day of what it described as a series of "board meetings" between May 24th and May 26th, The Standard (16/5) quoted "sources" within the ZMC saying the commissioners were "deeply divided" over the choice of facilitators, with commissioners aligned to ZANU PF allegedly insisting on Media, Information and Publicity Minister Webster Shamu, his permanent secretary George Charamba, and Attorney-General Johannes Tomana as the resource persons. Members of the commission who are not aligned to ZANU PF were reported to be opposed to the involvement of officials from the ZANU PF arm of government on the grounds that it would undermine the ZMC's independence.

To some extent this resistance to co-opt openly partisan facilitators is encouraging, though it remains to be seen who the ZMC eventually appoints as their "advisors". However, such petty political disputes should not even arise in an allegedly independent body and it will be instructive to note if the Commission declines any application for the registration of new media services - and if so, for what reason.

In its story reporting that successful applicants would be announced at the end of the Commission's deliberations next week, The Financial Gazette reported that it too, was planning to launch its own daily, The Daily Gazette, in addition to the expected return of The Daily News, while the Independent group of newspapers' has also applied to have its planned new daily, NewsDay, registered. If these new dailies are all duly registered without delay, this can only be good news for Zimbabweans whose choice of where they obtain news about Zimbabwe will be dramatically increased.

However, there is complete silence about the fate of new broadcasters. Indeed, while ZMC is also responsible for processing applications from these aspiring media operators, the fate of local broadcasters ultimately lies in the hands of the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) whose responsibility it will be to allocate the successful applicants the wavebands on which to broadcast. BAZ though, is itself mired in a controversy that does not appear to be anywhere near a conclusion. While Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai declared that its membership was irregularly appointed after Information Minister unilaterally announced its composition last year, there appears to have been no attempt to resolve this dispute. Without some resolution to this stalemate there will be no new local broadcasters and Zimbabweans, especially those beyond the limited urban reach of the Press, will still need to tune in to the foreign-based Zimbabwean radio stations broadcasting into the country to escape ZBC's turgid programming.

It will, therefore, be constructive for the ZMC and the coalition partners to clarify the situation regarding new broadcasting initiatives without delay.

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