WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY COMMEMORATION– MAY 3rd, 2009

WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY COMMEMORATION– MAY 3rd, 2009: Zimbabwe’s Lost Voices a presentation by Andy Moyse on the 4th of May 2009 at the Delta Gallery.

So much has been said this year about “celebrating” World Press Freedom Day that it’s difficult to talk about something usefully original without appearing to borrow from other commentators’ wise statements promising or demanding media reform, or recalling the horrors of Zimbabwe’s present media wasteland.

And wasteland it certainly is…

One look at the voices on exhibition here that once informed Zimbabwean society will give you some idea of the losses we have suffered over these last 10 years as government sought to suffocate Zimbabweans’ rights to freedom of expression – and particularly our rights to be informed.

May I first say how honoured and grateful I am for MMPZ to have been able to contribute to this valuable exhibition that reminds us so graphically about the voices we have lost. Our sincere thanks goes to the American Embassy and their staff for giving MMPZ the opportunity to provide some physical evidence of our monitoring – besides the Weekly Media Update! They have given us a splendid exhibition that should serve to renew our energies in our efforts to roll back the years of darkness and ignorance – and restore even some of the freedom we once had – at least in the Press – to express ourselves without fear of persecution and punishment at the hands of patently anti-democratic and repressive legislation.

What we see here flourished before the introduction of the notorious Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. I don’t need to spell out here the effect that this law – and others – have had in silencing our voices in the intervening years; it is all too obvious…Indeed it is painful to watch the welcome and extraordinary development of all sectors of the media in our neighbouring countries while we languish in our Stalinist state of ignorance.

We know exactly what needs to be done to restore our capacity to communicate with each other as a nation – and it has been said so many times over the past few days, I don’t really need to repeat them here.

But what I want to say is that we should not make the mistake of lamenting the death of The Daily News as if it had a personality of its own – which of course, it had…

It is the loss of what that paper represented that we should really be shedding tears for. The Daily News was an icon of its time, representing alternative opinion and attempting to hold the authorities to account. This is what we so badly miss. Of course there are a few independent weeklies that do a sterling job in attempting to provide this service. (And we should not forget the contributions of the private radio stations and the online agencies that do such a good job for the privileged few who can access their news.) But the big difference is that the weekly papers can only provide their services on a weekly basis and generally reach a very limited audience. The Daily News provided a vital mass-circulating alternative source of credible information on a daily basis that gave it unquestionable clout when it came to reporting the truth about events in Zimbabwe and countering the propaganda of the dominant state-managed media. Of course, the daily got the story wrong on occasion and we might not have agreed with some of its opinions on important national issues. But that is to be expected from any news organization.

In fact, that is the whole point about freedom of speech; that we are all entitled to express ourselves freely in a market place of ideas – and have the freedom to choose what we read, watch and listen to. The public themselves will decide which ideas will prevail and which news services are the most credible. Indeed, this is what should define a civilized society – and certainly one that aspires to democratic ideals.

That is what The Daily News represented – and it is what the authorities most feared. It quickly gained a reputation for credibility and for providing the public with a valuable source of reliable news and fair-minded opinion. That it was famous for exposing the excesses of government and for giving a legitimate alternative political opinion space on its pages can never be a reason for silencing it. But The Herald was happy when it was. Banning The Daily News not only restored its monopoly of the daily print market, it also imposed the government paper’s monopoly of its version of reality upon the public. And together with ZBC’s monopoly of the airwaves the nation was trapped in a terrible information tyranny

So we shouldn’t just be demanding a return of The Daily News alone; we should be demanding an environment that will allow the emergence of 10 Daily Newspapers, 20 weeklies, indeed, as many publications as there are people wishing to commit their ideas to print. The same goes for the airwaves, though because they are a limited a resource, a system of fair and equitable allocation needs to be established to achieve this. Certainly, a government with its own transient political interests should not be allowed to control such a process.

This, no doubt will be just one of the sticking points Zimbabwe’s media community will encounter at the government’s all-media stakeholders’ conference due to be held in Kariba this week. And for sure, the idea of a free market place of ideas sprouting unfettered in the print media too, will fill some members of the government – and maybe more than we imagine – with the utmost horror!

The arguments will be that the country needs “responsible” journalism that “promotes national values” in these days of so-called political reconciliation and national healing.

But this surely, will be the “thin end of the wedge” because it will again seek to control who exactly practices journalism and operates a media business. Will only those deemed to be “responsible” and promoting “national values” be allowed to operate newspapers and radio stations? Such a compromise will almost certainly be the outcome of the media conference if we, the people, allow such thinking to contaminate the basic internationally accepted ideal of freedom of expression.

We will be dragged into discussing the “red herring” of ensuring that there are laws to control “irresponsible” journalistic practice and media activity that offends “national values”.

But exactly what is “responsible” journalism and even “national values”?

Yesterday, I came across a letter in The Sunday Mail from the Public relations manager of ZBC responding to an earlier letter about “the absence of television transmission” in Masvingo. His argument was basically that Transmedia was the responsible authority. But in the process he took the trouble to remind the paper’s readers about ZBC’s mission statement, which he said, was: “To provide world class programmes and services that reflect, develop and foster national aspirations and Pan-African values.”

I have no trouble with the first bit of the mission statement about world-class services… But what exactly are “national aspirations” and “Pan-African values”?

These are so open to interpretation that it makes a nonsense of the mandate that should underpin the services of a national public broadcaster. Are Pan-African values any different from its mandate to provide fair and accurate news and current affairs coverage that give equitable airtime to all shades of opinion in the country? And do our national aspirations differ from this idea of the role of a national public broadcaster? In fact, what happened to this mandate that did once apply to ZBC’s services?

And why has the internationally accepted professional standards of our national public broadcaster been subsumed by the more narrow definitions appearing in ZBC’s mission statement?

The same is likely to happen more generally to the idea of adhering to internationally accepted standards of professional journalistic practice in the name of “responsible” journalism in the promotion of “national interests”.

Will these so-called standards mean that a “responsible” journalist will refrain from investigating or exposing government excess and corruption because it will cast the government in a bad light and will therefore be working against “national interests”?

If there is one thing Zimbabweans must guard against at this time when we have half a chance to make a difference, it is that we must NOT compromise our principles relating to our fundamental human rights. Freedom of expression is one of them and if we allow narrow interests to prevail and impose conditions on those rights, then we can guarantee that we will not see the emergence of any free and diverse media community in Zimbabwe because politicians will deem such an unfettered development to have the potential of undermining Zimbabwe’s national interest – and therefore its sovereignty.

This is the argument that has always protected the emergence of tyranny and it is in every Zimbabwean citizen’s interest – and not just the media community – to ensure that such specious arguments are NOT allowed to curtail our freedom of expression and our right to be informed.

Only by insisting on exercising our rights to free expression can we restore Zimbabwe’s lost voices – and know that we are acting faithfully in the national interest.

Thank you…