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Truth a casualty in state media fabrications
The Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe
July 28, 2011

MMPZ is increasingly disturbed by the public media's tendency to attempt to tarnish the reputation of individuals they appear to dislike, especially those who represent national institutions.

The most recent example is the national public broadcaster's attack on retired High Court Judge Justice Simpson Mutambanengwe, chairman of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC).

In its attempt to discredit and undermine the integrity of the ZEC chairman, ZTV (18/7, 8pm), accused Mutambanengwe of "compromising the standing of the electoral body" following remarks he allegedly made at a conference in Barcelona, Spain, that "war veterans are terrorizing people in Zimbabwe's rural areas".

The station claimed the conference was arranged by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), alleging that the institute was a European Union project.

ZTV and Spot FM reported war veterans and "political analysts" accusing Mutambanengwe of having "attacked his own country" and "compromised the position of ZEC".

The broadcaster quoted "impeccable sources" claiming that Mutambanengwe, who was allegedly invited to the conference to give a briefing about Zimbabwe's readiness for elections, "stunned the delegation he travelled with when he abandoned a speech prepared for him by officials in his office, opting to read a report prepared by a member of the British Embassy".

ZTV then sought comment on the allegations from one of its ZANU PF apologists masquerading as a political analyst, Goodson Nguni, who urged Mutambanengwe to "do the honourable thing and resign, as he is no longer a credible head of ZEC". He also said: "I was very sceptical about the appointment of the retired judge. He has a bad past and his activities in Zambia have proven beyond doubt (sic). The man cannot attack the country's liberation fighters. He should just go".

Another, Gabriel Chaibva, claimed Mutambanengwe "has for long proved that he is an agent of the regime-change agenda".

Notably, Justice Mutambanengwe denied making such comments, or even presenting a speech at the conference, which he said was hosted by the Barcelona International Peace Centre, contrary to ZBC's claims (NewsDay and Daily News, 21/7). And even the British Embassy issued a statement denying having prepared any speech for the ZEC chairman.

This is not the first time ZBC has attempted to discredit ZEC's commissioners. Earlier this year, ZTV (14/3, 8pm) quoted Nguni attacking ZEC commissioners in a report about the exhumation of the bodies of Zimbabweans who died during the liberation war at Chibondo Mine in Mt Darwin.

Mutambanengwe was not the only victim of the ZANU-PF controlled state media fabrications last week.

NewsDay (21/7) reported Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono complaining that The Herald (20/7) had misquoted him in its report: Renaissance saga . . . RBZ exposed. The report, based on Gono's presentation to the parliamentary portfolio committee on Budget and Finance on Monday July 18th, claimed that the RBZ has US$7 million worth of gold deposits "trapped" in the troubled Renaissance Merchant Bank, placed under curatorship by the central bank after revelations of financial irregularities.

"That's not what I said", retorted Gono. "I said we owe Renaissance $7 million in the form of statutory reserves and gold bonds like we do to all other banks. This headline is misleading. It looks like we have got money in Renaissance."

Ironically, complaints about the state media's distortions come at a time when these media have been consistently accusing the private media of committing similar professional misconduct.

In one of his regular columns in The Sunday Mail (10/6) ZANU PF Politburo member Jonathan Moyo accused the private media, especially those owned by Trevor Ncube, of being agents of Western imperialism under the headline: Private media gone to the dogs.

Moyo singled out the Zimbabwe Independent, which he accused of "unashamedly becoming a pathetic MDC-T pamphlet in a desperate bid to secure a good chunk of the three million dirty pounds that the British government started smuggling last month through Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's office to finance treacherously malleable media organizations and NGOs to influence the outcome of forthcoming . . . elections."

Significantly, this especially vitriolic and emotional diatribe followed the republication in the Independent and NewsDay, another paper owned by Trevor Ncube's Alpha Media Holdings, of old articles by Moyo savagely attacking President Mugabe and his party.

MMPZ condemns the shamelessly unprofessional conduct of these publicly owned media, which have resorted to fabricating blatant propaganda fairy tales to promote their own narrow political interests instead of providing credible news services to the public. As long as these media continue to disregard all the basic standards of professional journalism and allow their pages and broadcasts to be used to disseminate falsehoods and the language of intolerance and hatred, they cannot be regarded as news organizations and should be recognized for what they are; propaganda institutions peddling fiction and half-truths.

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