The Media Update 2007-43

DURING the week Zimbabwe’s dominant government-controlled media failed to provide important information about the state’s preparations for next year’s elections.

For example, they completely ignored news about problems that raised doubts about the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission’s capacity to run the elections. Neither did they conduct independent investigations to establish the state of the voters’ roll, nor how government’s second mobile voters’ registration exercise was being carried out.

The government media simply carried 11 stories that passively announced the signing into law of Constitutional Amendment Number 18, assurances by the ZEC that it would start the delimitation of boundaries “soon” and parliamentary revelations by the Registrar-General’s office that $3.5 trillion was needed to print the voters’ roll.

 

Notably, none of the media reported beyond these official pronouncements.

For example, there was no useful information about how the ZEC was planning to redraw the country’s constituencies or the timeframe that it needed to complete the exercise. Neither did the government media ask whether the commission would use the voters’ roll or Census statistics to establish the new boundaries. The government media was not even prompted to ask when the government would fund the printing of the voters’ roll. The Sunday Mail (4/11), for example, simply quoted ZEC chairman George Chiweshe vaguely saying they were “still fine-tuning specific areas” to ensure that delimitation was “effectively” done, adding: “However, we will make the necessary details known in due course.”     

 

Only the private media publicized the problems surrounding electoral preparations, which they claimed were suffering from a lack of human and financial resources, among others. They also exposed discrimination in the voters’ registration exercise, as well as restrictions imposed by the country’s electoral laws on civic organizations conducting voter education, and plans by government to gazette the Electoral Laws Amendment Bill to ensure synchronisation and compatibility with Constitutional Amendment 18 provisions. For example, the electronic news agency, ZimOnline (2/11), reported that government had reduced the number of voter registration centres in the country by 60 percent due to shortages of financial and human resources. Reportedly, the exercise had been extended after complaints, mostly from the MDC, that thousands of newly eligible voters had been left out in the initial mobile voter registration exercise.

In addition, the agency reported the opposition as having written to the ZEC demanding it convenes an all-party meeting to agree to “practical approaches to the registration of voters”.

 

Earlier, Studio 7 (29/10) reported some civic groups complaining that they were being restricted by the country’s electoral laws to conduct voter education efficiently. The groups told the station ZEC had only given them two weeks to carry out voter education, which they said was “too short to effectively educate citizens about the voting process”.     

 

THE official media only dealt superficially with the county’s economic crisis and its poor agricultural preparations. Their 112 reports on the matter (ZBC [75] and government Press [37]) were piecemeal and simply rehashed official assurances of a return to normality without matching the rhetoric with reality.  For example, there was no audit on the effectiveness of the authorities’ programmes in turning the economy around despite their repeated promises to tame inflation, reverse acute commodity shortages, enhance production and rein in the galloping cost of living. These media simply diverted attention on these issues by blaming those outside government for the problems, such as business and the West’s targeted sanctions against the ruling elite but which they continued to present as blanket sanctions against the Zimbabwean nation. For example, instead of giving a holistic picture of the hyperinflationary environment that businesses were operating in, ZTV (29/10, 8pm), The Herald and Chronicle (30/10) passively cited National Incomes and Pricing Commission chairman (NIPC) Godwills Masimirembwa “strongly warning” businesses against “increasing prices willy-nilly”.

 

Neither did they question the sense of his commission’s decision to set foreign currency invoices for imported goods at the official exchange rate as a way of stemming “spiralling prices” as most of them were “factoring in parallel market rates in their cost build-ups”. Nor did they attempt to assess the impact this would have on industry, considering that most businesses have virtually no access to the official foreign currency market forcing them to rely on the parallel market where rates are more than 300 percent higher. They also made no effort to relate Masimirembwa’s instruction to previous government attempts to control prices of goods and services under its price-cutting exercise, which resulted in the disappearance of basic commodities from the official market.

 

Only the next day did The Herald report business leaders expressing their disapproval of the NIPC demands, described by economist Godfrey Kanyenze as “tantamount to asking businesses to close shop because they had no alternative except turn to the parallel market for their foreign currency requirements”.The paper cited Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce president Marah Hativagone arguing that converting foreign currency at the official rate was akin “to asking the business community to subsidise their goods”. She noted that the development would further “dampen the mood within the business community, which had been trying to ensure that goods return to the shelves”. Confederation of Zimbabwe Industry boss Callisto Jokonya echoed similar sentiments: “Government does not have foreign currency …” adding, “he (Masimirembwa) must tell us where to get the foreign currency…” 

 

The paper however, let Masimirembwa off the hook when it failed to question him about the business community’s concerns – as did ZTV’s current affairs programme, Face the Nation, (1/11) - when they allowed him to cursorily dismiss these concerns as misplaced. Such professional incompetence was not isolated, as illustrated by Spot FM (3/10, 8pm). It drowned news of the recent increases in commuter fares in a report that claimed Zimbabwe’s erratic fuel supplies had improved. Notably, the station’s claims were at odds with its headline, which reported rural bus operators appealing to the state fuel procurer, NOCZIM, to increase their weekly fuel allocations.

In fact, the government media made no attempt to give informed coverage of the country’s economic problems, such as persistent commodity shortages and the new spate of commodity price increases. They only referred to the matter in the context of NIPC’s concern over the steep pricing of imported goods. As a result, they barely questioned where locally produced products had disappeared to.

 

The government media also papered over the country’s precarious food situation by emphasising authorities’ optimism that the forthcoming season would be a success while muting farmers’ concerns about the critical shortages of inputs such as seed and fertiliser. The narrow perspective in which they handled the matter was underpinned by their simplistic projection of government’s land reforms and its farm mechanisation programme as the panacea to the country’s agricultural and economic problems.

However, no evidence was given to demonstrate how the two programmes had improved agricultural production.

 

Spot FM (31/10, 8pm), for example, insisted that the forthcoming season will be “one of the busiest seasons coming after the mechanization drive,” adding that the ‘improved yields” would be boosted by the meteorological department’s forecasts of between normal to above normal rainfall.The station did not reconcile this claim with another report it carried in the same bulletin revealing that most small-scale tobacco farmers had been hit by a shortage of critical inputs to plant their dry land crop. It quoted Tobacco Industry Research Board Andrew Matibiri saying his organisation had only disbursed inputs to cover 5 000 hectares against the set target of 15 000 hectares.

The government Press followed suit. It glossed over the widespread shortages of agricultural inputs with Agriculture Minister Rugare Gumbo’s promise that government would import 800 000 tonnes of fertilizer “to ensure the coming season would be a success” (The Herald 1/11). Why government had waited until the eleventh hour to procure fertilizer remained unexplained, particularly in light of revelations in the Chronicle (29/10) that chiefs and farmers in Matebeleland had expressed “concern over the delays” in the provision of seed.

 

Otherwise, the government media projected the land reforms as enjoying extensive international support such that Jamaican reggae artist Luciano, in the country for a government-organised tourism promotion show, had composed a solidarity song ‘Zimbabwe Stands Strong’ (ZTV 1/11, 8pm and The Herald 2/11). They presented Luciano’s support of the land reforms as having “stung” the British authorities into the “vindictive” act of refusing the artist’s band members transit visas to come to Zimbabwe. No verification of the claims was made. ZTV (1/11, 8pm), for example, simply cited Zimbabwe Tourism Authority boss Karikoga speculating about the reasons for the musicians’ failure to get to Zimbabwe. He told the station: “British officials said the band couldn’t go through because some of them didn’t have visas”, or that “those with transit visas boycotted the trip because others were not allowed to proceed”.

 

The government media’s reliance on official rhetoric as the basis for its news content was reflected in their sourcing patterns as shown in Figs 1 and 2. 

 

 

Fig 2: Voice distribution in government papers.

 

A critical coverage of the country’s economic and agricultural problems only appeared in the private media, which carried 40 stories on the matter.

Of these, 16 appeared in the private electronic media and 24 in the private Press.

These media interpreted Masimirembwa’s threats as counterproductive and a reflection of the discord in government policies, as they came barely a month after news that the Reserve Bank was trying to revive the business community following government’s price-cutting campaign.

For example, The Financial Gazette (1/11) complained that Masimirembwa’s commission did not “care about where manufactures access their foreign currency requirements”,predicting that the commission’s decision “points to more dark days for local industry…” In addition, it advised the commission to “restrict its role to that of complementing other economic agencies…” and leave politics to politicians.

Studio 7 (30/10), Zimbabwe Independent (2/11) and The Standard (4/11) carried similar sentiments.

While The Standard quoted Callisto Jokonya urging the commission to “stick to its mandate of monitoring prices” and leave the foreign currency issue to the central bank,the Independent noted that despite government “talking “tough” about the parallel market, it was also a major player.

The private media also reported on the country’s precarious food situation.

The reports included one from ZimOnline (1/11) revealing that the United Nations had imported nearly 36 000 tonnes of maize from Malawi as part of its emergency food aid to the country, and another in The Zimbabwean (1/11) that army barracks had been hit by serious food shortages (also in The Standard)

The private media also questioned the government’s campaign to portray the country as an attractive tourism destination as illustrated by Luciano’s visit. For example, the Independent argued that this type of publicity “targeted at glossing over Zimbabwe’s crisis” ahead of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa would not increase tourist arrivals in the country.

 

The critical manner in which the private papers examined official pronouncements was shown by their wide use of voices outside government. See Figs 3 and 4.

 

 

 

ALL media followed up on the strife rocking the Morgan Tsvangirai-led MDC faction, sparked by the opposition leader’s controversial dissolution of the party’s women’s league, led by Lucia Matibenga, in alleged disregard of recommendations of an internal inquiry and advice from the party’s national executive council. They carried 56 reports on the matter. Of these, ZBC carried eight stories, official papers (15), the private electronic media (15) and private Press (18). These media’s reports not only updated their audiences on the subsequent controversial election of Theresa Makone to replace Matibenga and the outbreak of violence between those supporting Matibenga’s ouster and those opposed to it, they also analysed the implications of the development on the party, especially ahead of next year’s elections. Even the government media, whose unflattering coverage of opposition activities is a matter of public record, reported the development as a matter of fact. All their stories on the subject, for example, simply reported on the in-house squabbles as they unfolded without embellishing them with editorial intrusions.Examples included ‘MDC fails to hold women’s congress’ (ZTV 30/10, 6pm & 8pm) and ‘Troubled MDC faction’s national executive committee is holding a crisis meeting in Harare today’ (Spot FM 3/11, 1pm).

 

The government Press also gave a fair assessment of the in-fighting in the opposition, reporting on the “chaos” and “violence” that erupted in Bulawayo where the MDC’s women’s assembly factions held two “congresses” to elect a new leadership (The Herald and Chronicle 29/10). Subsequently, The Herald (30/10 & 1/11) recorded four incidents of intra-party violence in the opposition, which included assaults and the stoning of houses. The private media went even further. They cited analysts criticising the Matibenga sacking as a political blunder that once again exposed Tsvangirai’s flagrant disregard of the party’s constitution, and his authoritarian qualities, which in October 2005, led to the initial split in the party.

 

New Zimbabwe (1/11), for example, carried an opinion piece by Dr Magaisa who largely attributed the problems in the party to Tsvangirai’s “inept leadership,” which has “plunged the party into a quagmire”. ZimOnline (29/10) and the Independent quoted political analyst Eldred Masunungure saying the ouster of the executive of the women’s assembly exposed the opposition’s weakness on strategy on the eve of the crucial 2008 elections.As the week ended, The Standard (4/11) reported that Tsvangirai had failed to secure the endorsement of Makone as chairperson of the women’s assembly by the national executive, which reportedly told him that the process leading to her election was “flawed” and “unacceptable”. The Sunday Mail carried a similar story. However, none of the media sought clarification from Tsvangirai on the chaos in his party.

 

A sampling of the voice distribution from the private and government papers reflects the pattern throughout the media (Figs 5 and 6).