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Weekly Media Review - Issue 11
The Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe
Monday March 14th 2011 - Sunday March 20th 2011
March 25, 2011

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A cautious welcome for The Daily News

MMPZ welcomes the return of the privately owned Daily News, whose "souvenir launch edition" hit the streets on March 18th. Full-time publication of the paper was promised to resume last Friday.

Once the country's most popular daily before it was forced off the streets in September 2003 after failing to register with the Media and Information Commission (MIC) under the chairmanship of Tafataona Mahoso, the paper received a new lease of life after being licensed last May by the MIC's successor, the Zimbabwe Media Commission.

While the return of The Daily News - coupled with the introduction of NewsDay - is a welcome relief that will help to provide the critically important alternative daily news service for Zimbabweans who have been at the mercy of the government-controlled dailies for more than seven years, MMPZ still views such a development as a limited victory for media freedom.

Punitive laws that control all media activity, such as the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) still remain in place. This law and the Broadcasting Services Act, among others, impose stifling statutory controls on all media activity, and government has used them effectively as its weapon of choice to suppress independent thought and opinion.

In addition, while in theory ZBC should be congratulated for restoring its broadcast coverage to 65% of the country with the installation of transmitters in Mudzi, Plumtree, Beitbridge and Victoria Falls (ZTV 13/3, 8pm), this cannot be hailed as significant progress until the broadcaster is freed from the shackles of its propaganda role for ZANU PF and its mandate as an independent national public broadcasting service is restored.

Although government introduced legislation that allowed non-state broadcasters to be licensed in 2000, the law effectively prevented the operation of any independent broadcasters, thus preserving ZBC's illegal monopoly of this sector.

As a result, no independent broadcasters have been licensed despite the GPA's calls for the "opening up of the airwaves" and "the operation of as many media houses as possible".

So the same restrictions that have curtailed freedom of expression, including those used to shut The Daily News and three other private papers, remain basically intact. And even if many members of the ZMC are progressive "media reformists", the Commission is still obliged to apply the excessively bureaucratic registration and regulatory provisions that remain under AIPPA. MMPZ therefore expects the inclusive government to expedite the media reforms it undertook to implement under the Global Political Agreement and fully restore Zimbabweans' rights to free expression in accordance with regional and international protocols.

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