Weekly Media Update 2008-29

MMPZ notes with concern the alarming increase in the difficulties the population is experiencing in accessing information as a result of the country’s intensifying economic decay.
Newspapers, particularly alternative ones, have become luxury commodities as they have been basically priced beyond the reach of Zimbabwe’s cash-strapped middle classes. The situation is made worse by the paltry cash withdrawal limit of $1,000 a day allowed by banks, only reviewed upwards this week by the Reserve Bank to $20,000.
Before the increase, this figure was not enough to buy a copy of the weekly government-controlled papers under the Zimbabwe Newspapers stable.
For example, the editions of the official weeklies at the end of September (The Sunday Mail and Sunday News) were going for $1,500 each, while Zimpapers’ flagship daily, The Herald, was selling for $1,000.
Alternative sources of information, such as private papers, which depend on commercial viability, have been priced in the luxury items bracket as they battle to survive harsh economic conditions. For example, the latest edition of The Financial Gazette costs $4 500 while that of the Zimbabwe Independent was sold for $3 000 in the last week of September.
Obtaining news from the electronic media, such as the national broadcaster, ZBC, private radio stations, online news agencies and even e-mail, is also becoming increasingly elusive as a result of ever more frequent and severe power cuts. Only those Zimbabweans lucky enough to own generators – depending on the availability of fuel – remain with the ability to access information on a fairly regular basis.
Add to this the domination of Zimbabwe’s media landscape by the government-controlled media and their biased and selective coverage of events during this important period in the country’s history and it becomes clear that the nation has been plunged into an even more intense and suffocating information “dark age”, where reliable information is at a premium and the main means of communicating news is rapidly reverting to word-of-mouth – or sms.
It is a basic truth that where communication is suffocated rumour and speculation abound. The authorities complain bitterly about this grievous state of affairs, yet it is entirely of their own making.
And there can be only one solution: a new political dispensation that recognises the importance the media play in shaping every facet of the nation’s activities, and encourages a new and diverse media landscape that promotes democratic practice and sound, accountable political and economic policies that will lead to Zimbabwe’s revival – and the free expression of our hope for a better future.
 
 
 
 
The public and private Press
The power sharing agreement between ZANU PF and the two MDC formations signed more than two weeks ago, and the economic and health calamities facing the country, competed for attention in both the public and private papers in the week as shown in Fig 1.
 
Fig 1: News distribution in the Press
Publication
Political deal

Economy
Health & sanitation
Food security
United Nations
Political violence

The Herald
19
9
6
9
4
0

The Sunday Mail
4
2
1
3
0
0

Chronicle
5
12
2
5
3
0

Sunday News
1
3
0
2
0
0

The Manica Post
2
0
0
1
0
1

The Financial Gazette
3
2
1
2
0
0

Zimbabwe Independent

5
3
0
3
1
0

The Standard
2
3
2
0
0
0

The Zimbabwean
7
1
0
0
0
0

Total
48
35
12
25
8
1
 
The official papers devoted more stories to the power sharing deal compared to the economic decline, persisting health problems and political violence.
They downplayed these problems, portraying the authorities as working flat out to mitigate them without measuring the adequacy of their efforts. Consequently, no coherent stock of the socio-economic impact of these crises was made, including the human cost.
The Herald and Chronicle (23/9), for example, limited their coverage of the recent cholera outbreak to Chitungwiza and Chinhoyi when the epidemic was reportedly prevalent in several other urban centres of the country. Neither did they critically account for the causes of the disease, which include government’s failure to provide adequate supplies of safe drinking water to many urban areas.
The official papers’ reportage of the food security situation and government’s preparations for the forthcoming agricultural season was fashioned in a similar way.
They neither assessed the extent of grain shortages in the country nor measured the sufficiency of government interventionist programmes to resolve the problem. Rather, they simplistically depicted authorities as working hard to alleviate hunger and preparing the nation for the coming farming season. The Herald and Chronicle (22/9), for example, quoted Vice-President Joice Mujuru “allaying farmers’ fears over inadequate” inputs and promising that government would start distributing agricultural inputs “before the rains fall”. No attempt was made to assess the authorities’ capacity to provide adequate inputs.
 
Only the privately owned Press critically analysed these issues.
They attributed these problems to poor government policies and Zimbabwe’s notorious international reputation over debt repayments, which has resulted in most sections of the international community withdrawing financial and technical support. In addition, the private papers measured the impact of these socio-economic problems on Zimbabweans.
For example, it only emerged in The Standard (28/9) that the cholera outbreak was a nationwide problem, also detected in other areas like Kariba and Juru Growth Point.
Contrary to official media reports that at least 13 people had died from the epidemic, The Standard recorded medical sources and human rights organizations putting the death toll at “more than 16 people” as some cases were going unreported.
The Financial Gazette (25/9) and the Zimbabwe Independent (26/9) cited international food relief agencies stating that millions of Zimbabweans risked starvation due to poor government policies.
However, as shown in Fig 1, both the government and private papers did not do justice to political violence, reported to be ongoing despite the signing of a political deal paving the way for the formation of an all-party government.
Only The Manica Post recorded an incident, stemming from an alleged arson attack on a house belonging to a ZANU PF official in Buhera “after an altercation with MDC-T supporters”. However, the report was vague with no source directly quoted confirming it.
 
 Fig. 2 illustrates the sourcing patterns of the official and private papers.
 
Fig 2: Voice distribution in the Press
Publication

Government
Professional
Alternative
Local government
Ordinary people

The Herald

14
11
0
0
1

The Sunday Mail
5
0
0
0
0

Chronicle
8
1
0
0
1

Sunday News
2
0
0
2
1

The Manica Post
0
0
0
0
0

The Standard
3
0
3
1
2

Zimbabwe Independent
0
0
1
0
 

The Financial Gazette
2
0
3
1
 
 
 
ZBC and Private Radio Stations
The fate of the power-sharing deal between ZANU PF and the two formations of the MDC continued to generate intense interest on ZBC and the private radio stations in the week, overshadowing other critical issues such as the collapse in health delivery service, accelerated economic decline and looming mass starvation.
A statistical breakdown of the electronic media’s coverage of these issues is shown in Fig 1.
 
Fig 1: Stories on ZBC and private radio stations
Station
Deal Follow-up
Health & Sanitation
Agriculture & Food Security
Political Violence
UN General Assembly
Economic Decline
ZTV
18
5
5
0
4
12
Spot FM
27
1
10
0
15
 
Radio Zimbabwe
8
1
5
0
10
21
Studio 7
4
2
3
2
1
3
SW Radio Africa
10
0
3
2
2
3
Total
67
9
26
4
32
39
 
Despite ZBC’s extensive coverage of the power-sharing deal, there was still no investigation of the continued deadlock over the allocation of four key ministries; finance, home affairs, local government and foreign affairs, and the threat this posed to establishing a substantive Cabinet whose task it will be to solve the country’s manifold crises.
Neither did ZBC attribute President Mugabe’s attendance at the recent UN summit as being at least partly responsible for delaying efforts to resolve the dispute. Instead, the broadcaster blandly prioritised (See Fig. 1) the UN debate at the expense of informative updates on the economic, food security, health and politically motivated violence problems haunting the country. This poor showing was aptly illustrated by the way ZBC papered over Zimbabwe’s food security crisis and the cholera outbreaks.
ZBC based all its cholera reports on official assurances that the government was “nearly controlling” the outbreak (ZTV, 22/9, 8pm) without providing evidence.
As a result, there was no effort to reconcile the causes of the cholera outbreak with the dramatic deterioration of urban sanitation characterised by a shortage of clean water and an increase in spilled sewage.
ZBC’s coverage of Zimbabwe’s agricultural and food security woes also portrayed government as being in control. No evidence of this was noticeable.
For example, there was no clarification as to how the authorities’ interventionist programmes, such as their launch of the Bikita-based cattle breeding scheme and the fourth phase of the farm mechanization programme would help revive the country’s devastated farming sector. Neither did ZBC give a clear picture of the nation’s readiness for the 2008/2009 farming season.
ZTV (24/9, 8pm) and Spot FM (25/9, 8am), for example, simply quoted chief secretary to Cabinet Misheck Sibanda claiming that “government had started distributing key inputs” to all farmers in the country but did not identify or quantify these to see if they met national requirements.
In line with its attempts to depict a stable food situation, it censored private and international media reports showing that at least five million people would soon be needing food assistance. This was despite its own revelations (24/9, 8pm) that the Red Cross alone had “embarked on a nationwide humanitarian assistance programme” aimed at feeding about 260,000 people.    
ZBC’s seemingly diverse sourcing patterns (Fig 2) disguised its biased approach to these stories as all its independent voices basically echoed official sentiments.
 
Fig 2: Voice Distribution on ZBC and private radio stations on health, agriculture and food security. 
Station
Central Govt
Independent
War Vets
Farmers
Local Govt
MDC
ZTV
2
0
2
0
5
0
Spot FM
6
4
6
0
0
0
Radio Zimbabwe
3
0
0
0
0
0
Studio 7
0
3
0
2
0
1
SW Radio Africa
0
4
0
0
0
0
 
The private radio stations critically measured the indifference and incompetence of government policies, underscored by the political leadership’s failure to establish an effective government.
They also carried warnings from experts about Zimbabwe’s precarious health and food security situations, its food and farming requirements and farmers’ grievances over government’s poor preparations.
Notably, only the private radio stations reported that despite the signing of a power sharing deal, politically motivated violence remained a problem in the country.
They recorded four incidents, all of which identified MDC supporters as victims and ZANU PF activists and state security agents as offenders.
 
Online Publications
Online news agencies also gave most publicity to the power-sharing deal (See Fig 3).
 
Fig 3: Stories on health, agriculture and food security in Online News Agencies
Station
Deal Follow-up
Health and sanitation
Agriculture and food security
Political violence
ZimOnline
9
2
2
1
The Zimbabwe Times
11
0
2
1
New Zimbabwe
6
0
1
0
Zimdaily
7
0
0
0
Total
33
2
5
2
 
Except for ZimOnline (26/9), these agencies ignored the threats posed by the country’s poor sanitary conditions – especially the provision of clean water – which has been largely attributed to cholera outbreaks in urban areas.
Similarly, not much publicity was given to the agricultural or food security problems facing the country, although the few reports they carried remained critical by raising concern about the availability of food and agricultural inputs for the 2008/9 planting season.
The poor attention given to these topics is reflected in the sourcing patterns of these publications as illustrated in Fig 4.
 
Fig 4: Voice Distribution on Online News Agencies
Station
Govt
Independent
MDC
ZimOnline
1
1
1
The Zimbabwe Times
0
1
0
New Zimbabwe
0
0
0
Zimdaily
0
0
0
 
 
What they said…
 
“There is no one who is keen to resign from the agreement. Only one area relating to four Cabinet posts is outstanding. I am surprised the Americans and British are saying loud, stupid things about us.” - President Mugabe refuting reports that the power-sharing deal was deadlocked. The Sunday Mail (28/9).
 
“They are waiting for a day when this man, this evil man, called Robert Mugabe is no longer in control.  And I don’t know when that day is coming.” - President Mugabe speaking at the UN summit. Zimbabwe Times (24/9) and SW Radio Africa (25/9).
 
“So please go and take all the money that you earn in a month from the bank on day one and spend it.” - Gideon Gono, Reserve Bank Governor, following his increase in the cash withdrawal limit from $1 000 to $20 000. The Zimbabwe Times (25/9)
 
“The office of the prime minister has been created merely to absorb the MDC under the guise of power sharing.” - Lovemore Madhuku, chairman of the National Constitutional Assembly, commenting on the power-sharing deal. SW Radio Africa (23/9)
 
Ends//

  

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