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Weekly Media Review 2011-26
The Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe
Monday June 27th - Sunday July 3rd 2011
July 08, 2011

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State media steps up the propaganda war

MMPZ has observed a sustained propaganda crusade, especially by the ZANU PF arm of government and the state media it controls, on various important developments in the country.

In the week, this was evident in the public media's coverage of the acquittal of MDC-T Energy Minister Elton Mangoma by High Court judge Chinembiri Bhunu on charges of illegally directing the purchase of fuel from a South African company; civil servants' pay rises; and the ongoing debate on political violence and security sector reforms.

These media presented these issues from an exclusively ZANU PF perspective, ignoring not only professional journalistic standards, but badly short-changing their audiences by failing to provide them with useful, impartial information they need to participate fully as citizens in a free society. And as this report was being compiled ZTV again provided a graphic illustration of its propagandist instincts with a gratuitous and unsubstantiated attack on the respected media interests organization, the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA). In its main evening news bulletin on Tuesday (5/7) its reporter described MISA's elective annual general meeting as being "marred by serious vote buying and rigging . . . " without providing a shred of evidence to support this claim. MMPZ condemns this shamelessly unprofessional conduct.

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