Weekly Media Updates 2000

Weekly Media update 2000 - 38

  • The presentation of the main story in the week under review (that of Capital Radio) by the State-owned media raises serious concerns about the extent to which State influence on the public media has served to disenfranchise public of its right to accurate and relevant information.
  • For most Zimbabweans whose only access to news and information is through public media such as Radio 2

Weekly Media update 2000 - 37

  • Except for The Sunday News, the media adopted a strangely muted initial reaction to what the ZIANA news agency correctly identified as Morgan Tsvangirai’s “most devastating blunder since entering politics”.

Weekly Media update 2000 - 36

  • The Supreme Court’s historic ruling striking down the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation’s stranglehold on the airwaves on the grounds that it was unconstitutional, received wide publicity.

Weekly Media update 2000 - 35

  • The opposition bombing and subsequent police raids on the offices of the opposition MDC provided the state-owned media with the opportunity to promote the official view that the grenade blast was “an inside job” done in an attempt to tarnish the image of government.

Weekly Media update 2000 - 34

  • All the media reported the Commercial Farmers’ Union’s decision to revive litigation against the government’s compulsory acquisition of farms – and the criticism it invoked. But the state owned media stopped running stories that provided some critical insight to the land reform process in the week under review.

Weekly Media update 2000 - 33

  • Huge fuel price increases, predicted the week before they happened by the Zimbabwe Independent and by Zimpapers’ business supplements the day before they came into effect, escaped all scrutiny in the Sunday press.

Weekly Media update 2000 - 32

  • Zimbabweans could be forgiven for wondering whether government constituted a headless chicken or a Hydra in the week under review. While the highlight of the week was government’s double U-turn over squatters on peri-urban farmland, conflicting voices of authority in the media appeared to deepen public confusion.

Weekly Media update 2000 - 30

·   Government’s fast track land reform programme received unstinting event-coverage in the public media with scarce and superficial analysis examining the consequences and logistics of the exercise. Abundant and critical analysis dominated the private press. 

Weekly Media update 2000 - 29

DURING the past two weeks, a noticeable change in the way the publicly owned media are reporting the news has been observed.

Weekly Media update 2000 - 28

  • COVERAGE of the worst sporting tragedy in Zimbabwe’s history dominated the early part of the week in all media.