The public media’s coverage of parties to the inclusive government between February 11th and March 1st 2009.

In a clear break from the past where favourable coverage of ZANU PF’s activities dominated the news and current affairs programmes of the national broadcaster, ZBC, and the news pages of the government papers, these past few weeks have witnessed a significant change in the way these media traditionally reported on ZANU PF’s political opponents. In the period reviewed the MDC has received previously unknown positive coverage in the government media following the historic swearing-in of MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai as Prime Minister, and his deputies Thokozani Khupe and Arthur Mutambara and their Cabinet ministers.

 

Figs. 1 to 4 illustrate this point.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, although these statistics show a significant improvement in the official media’s coverage of the country’s main political parties, they do not fully address or do justice to the bias that still discredits their coverage of the activities of the inclusive government.

This bias has chiefly manifested itself through the suffocation and censorship of important MDC activities and announcements; story angling, prioritisation and story placement.

For example, while ZBC gave some space to the MDC, ZANU PF remained the dominant party on the national broadcaster as it received more news airtime compared to the two MDCs in the inclusive government. According to MMPZ’s statistics, of the 87 minutes and 39 seconds ZTV devoted to the activities of the inclusive government in its bulletins between February 11^th and March 1^st, 51 minutes and 15 seconds of this (58.5%) were on President Mugabe and ZANU PF ministers, while 23 minutes and 9 seconds (26.4%) were on Prime Minister Tsvangirai and ministers from his faction of the MDC. The remaining 13 minutes and 15 seconds (15.1%) covered Deputy Prime Minister Mutambara and ministers from his small faction of the MDC.

As the figures show, the total time allocated to both MDCs still represented less than half of the total amount of time ZTV devoted to President Mugabe and ZANU PF, despite the MDC’s critical government roles in resuscitating the country’s collapsed socio-economic sectors.

In addition, while the national broadcaster either suffocated or completely censored some of Prime Minister Tsvangirai’s newsworthy activities, they turned President Mugabe’s birthday celebrations into a national event, whose proceedings saturated the airwaves. For instance, ZTV (26/2, 9pm) devoted about one hour and 40 minutes to its interview with Mugabe to commemorate his 85^th birthday. This was repeated the following day. Then on February 28^th it disrupted its afternoon programming to accommodate live broadcast of his birthday party in Chinhoyi, which ran for at least three hours.     

This contrasted sharply with a mere two minutes and 45 seconds ZTV (11/2, 8pm) devoted to Tsvangirai’s post-inauguration celebration rally at Glamis Stadium where he outlined his party’s programme of action in the new government and another two minutes the station (23/2, 8pm) allocated to his Gweru rally celebrating the MDC’s 10^th anniversary.

Most critically, ZBC stations all ignored Tsvangirai’s press conference where he announced that President Mugabe’s unilateral appointment of Permanent Secretaries was null and void because it constituted a violation of the Global Political Agreement. The important accompanying issues raised by Tsvangirai at that meeting as representing obstacles to the fulfilment of the GPA and the earlier Memorandum of Understanding, such as the continued detention of MDC and civic activists, have also been completely ignored by the broadcaster.

While the general slant of ZBC stories since the formation of the unity government has been to project Mugabe as enjoying unequivocal mass support, ZTV (28/2, 8pm) carefully avoided showing the rapturous welcome Tsvangirai received from Harare Central Hospital workers during his tour of the health centre. The report merely restricted itself to his pledge to mobilise funds for the hospital. While his pledges were important, given Zimbabwe’s perilous health service delivery, the censorship of the health workers’ rousing reception for the MDC leader appears to conform with the government media’s previous attempts to mask the widespread support Tsvangirai enjoys among Zimbabweans and thereby buttress the ZANU PF notion that only Mugabe commands national appeal.

 

The government papers were no different.

Despite their attempts to provide equitable coverage, MDC activities were almost always subordinated to those of President Mugabe and his ZANU PF, especially whenever these were reported concurrently.

The papers’ coverage of Tsvangirai’s swearing-in ceremony typified this deliberate bias.

The Herald (12/2), for instance, gave extensive front-page space to Mugabe’s speech at the swearing-in ceremony while relegating to the end of the story snippets of Tsvangirai and Mutambara’s inaugural statements.

In addition that same day, the paper and the Chronicle buried news of Tsvangirai’s Glamis Stadium rally where he outlined his vision of Zimbabwe’s recovery on their inside pages. They also censored most of his promises, including paying civil servants in hard currency, preferring to stress his calls for reconciliation and peaceful co-existence among the parties. His promise only appeared the next day (13/2) in the context of acting finance minister Patrick Chinamasa expanding on it, and teachers’ representative Sifiso Ndlovu dismissing it as “void”.

Their failure to cover the MDC’s activities adequately also manifested itself in their reports on Tsvangirai’s Gweru rally. The official papers (23/2) devoted a small piece to the event, which they tucked away in their inside pages.

More importantly, the papers censored some of Tsvangirai’s important policy statements, especially relating to his party’s position within the inclusive government. These appeared only in the private papers.

Such reluctance to openly report on the MDC’s activities and announcements, particularly those of critical national importance, reached intolerable proportions when the papers totally censored Tsvangirai’s Press conference where he rescinded Mugabe’s unilateral appointment of permanent secretaries to most ministries, including those being run by the MDC, and his fact-finding visit to Harare Central Hospital.

 

(Notably, The Herald (21/2) began referring to Biti and Tsvangirai as “Cde”, a term previously reserved for ZANU PF officials and their inner circle of friends. No explanation has been given about whether this represents new editorial policy or was simply an oversight, especially as the next day The Sunday Mail continued addressing them as “Messrs” while The Herald (23/2) maintained its “Cde” honorific.)

 

(This report was compiled by the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe - March 3^rd, 2009)

 

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