Weekly Media update 2004 - 3

For example, ZANU-PF is reportedly continuing with its violent campaign against supporters of the opposition, particularly in Gutu North where a parliamentary by-election is scheduled for February 1-2. Not only that, the ruling party is also being accused of using traditional leaders to frustrate the campaign activities of the MDC.

Only the private media revealed these barbaric tactics, which the ruling party has unashamedly employed in every election since the entrance into the political arena of the opposition MDC in late 1999.

Recently, the police raided the MDC offices in search of what they described as "subversive" material, The Standard and The Sunday Mirror (25/1).

Members of civic organisations have not been spared from this repression. Studio 7 (21/01) The Daily News and The Daily Mirror (23/01) reported that the police broke up a meeting of Harare residents organised by the Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA) to discuss the increase in rates by Harare City Council by 600 percent.

The government-controlled media predictably ignored these incidents highlighting the extent of State-tolerated repression in the country.

Instead, ZBC chose to drown its audiences with stories about the Zimbabwe national soccer team's journey to Tunisia for the African Nations Cup soccer tournament. For instance, ZTV devoted 30 minutes or 24 percent of its total news time (excluding business, weather and sport segments) allocated to 8pm bulletins in the week to soccer. Songs such as Go Warriors Go composed by Information Minister Jonathan Moyo accompanied some of the news items. In addition, the station's current affairs programmes such as the 30-minutes-long Behind the Camera and the-hour-long Face the Nation discussed soccer. Its Monday evening programming was also suspended to pave the way for live coverage of the team's departure to Tunisia.

However, this overly generous devotion to soccer did not translate into a critical examination of Zimbabwe's preparations for the tournament but represented mere jingoistic puff pieces for the national team. The broadcaster ignored the chaos that surrounded the departure of the national team supporters to Tunisia and the shameful attempts by ZANU PF functionaries such as the war veterans' leader, Joseph Chinotimba, to hijack the event into a ZANU PF affair.

It was only the private media that revealed this. For example, The Daily News on Sunda y (25/01) reported that Chinotimba distributed T-shirts inscribed Sendekera Mwana Wevhu, ZANU PF's latest slogan for land reform programme, amongst supporters and announced that those intending to travel to Tunisia should wear the T-shirts. Perceived MDC supporters and some journalists working for the private media were reportedly barred from traveling to Tunisia.

The government Press also turned a blind eye to this. Rather, The Sunday Mail (25/01) tried to give government mileage out of the national team's success. Said the paper: "We salute those in Government who put their heads on the block to pump a lot of resources into the Warriors' campaign, chartering a plane for the boys when everyone else was arguing that the money should be spent on food" .

Such immoral attempts to politically hijack a popular sport clearly demonstrates the extent to which the authorities will go to try and win the support of Zimbabweans, who are becoming increasingly frustrated with the government's failure to restore some stability to Zimbabwe's social, political and economic existence.

 

The government-controlled media's enthusiasm to portray the sickly Zimbabwean economy as finally recovering from its myriad ailments found expression again this week through its narrow and simplistic interpretations of the effects the recently announced Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe's monetary policy has had on the country's economy.

A decrease in inflation in December by 20.8 percent to 598.7 percent from the November rate of 619.5 percent was the latest economic indicator the government-controlled media used to support its arguments that the country's economy was on the mend.

Such fixation with the drop in inflation, as if that on its own was the key to success, without relating it holistically to other yet unresolved economic fundamentals, deprived audiences of the government media a greater insight into the complications the economy has to overcome if it is to recover.

As a result these media devoted most of their time to praising the Central Bank governor, Gideon Gono, for inducing a drop in inflation instead of questioning whether government would abandon its disastrous policies, which have largely been blamed for the country's economic troubles, to complement the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe's (RBZ) efforts.

Although The Herald (22/1) half-heartedly touched on the subject, when it noted that "most economic analysts feel it could be still too soon to predict (the economic) recovery course as more focus will be on assessing government's credibility and consistency in its policy implementation" , its slant was largely unquestioning as it sought to present the drop in inflation as an illustration of the effectiveness of the monetary policy.

Likewise, ZTV (20/01, 8pm) pointed out that the drop in inflation showed that the " economy has begun to respond positively to the monetary policy" adding (21/01, 8pm) that this was a clear indication the "country's economy is on the path to recovery."

However, the private media disputed this. For instance, Studio 7(22/01) quoted economic commentator Tony Hawkins attributing the drop in inflation to the fact that prices of goods went up by "11 percent in December" compared to October and November last year when prices increased by over 32 percent. He described government-controlled media's attempts to directly link the RBZ's fiscal policy to the decline in inflation as " nonsense because figures were compiled before the monetary policy was even announced."

The Zimbabwe Independent (23/01) agreed, and observed that even the excitement over the drop in inflation rang hollow because the country's inflation was still "600 percent higher than our trading partners".

In its comment, Gono's magic wand won't do the trick, the paper observed that all the positive publicity about Gono's strategies were likely to fizzle out because the country was not only failing to attract tourists and foreign investment, but also lacked badly needed financial support from key multilateral financial institutions.

Said the paper: "He (Gono) may tinker at the margins" but "sooner or later he will have to face the hard facts that under the current regime a mismanaged economy, macro-economic distortions, corruption and shortages have become a way of life."

The Sunday Mirror (25/01) concurred. It pointed out that leading economists " remained pessimistic as to whether the problem of inflation has finally been averted" arguing that unless all stakeholders are fully committed and collaborate to complement current central bank efforts "the current 'honeymoon' would soon hit a brick wall".

The Daily Mirror (21/01) and The Daily News (23/01) shared the same view.

The government media would still not factor in these aspects in their reports.

Besides, it also seemed to escape the professional logic of journalists from these media, as illustrated by The Herald (20/1) and ZBC (20/01, 8pm), that the availability of basic goods, although expensive, was a result of government abandoning price controls rather than the RBZ's monetary policy alone.

It was this obsession with promoting the monetary policy as a magic potion for the economic revival that saw ZBC (20/01, 8pm) claim that as a result of Gono's measures prices of commodities were tumbling.

There was no attempt to look at other reasons outside the monetary policy that could have led to prices of some commodities going down. For example, it is common practice that retailers have clearance sales in January when business is usually low.

As a result of such simplistic attempts to sell the monetary policy, the government-controlled media also found themselves glossing over the effectiveness of the foreign currency auction system, which The Zimbabwe Independent reported as coming "under fire" from the same businesses that wanted it introduced because of its "unviable low" auction prices.

SW Radio Africa (20/01) also quoted Hawkins doubting the success of the auction system. Commenting on the firming of the local currency Hawkins said: " This is a very artificial situation because the level of the amount of transaction in the market is tiny. It's been about $2million an auction whereas a normal auction would have to be about $15 million an auction. So you can't read anything into these figures at this stage" .

However, the government-controlled media unquestioningly allowed government to identify itself with Gono's attempts to revive the economy, ZBC (21/01, 8pm), The Herald (19/1&22/1) and Chronicle (23/1).

The Herald (19/1) carried a public relations story in which ZANU PF tried to own Gono's financial sector clean-up, a move only questioned and interpreted in the private media as government's way of shoring up its waning support ahead of the 2005 parliamentary polls.

The Business Tribune (23/1) comment queried why Gono would only meet ZANU PF MPs and not legislators from the opposition because "...the MDC cannot be wished away as they represent a large chunk of voters."

The Standard (25/1) dismissed ZANU PF's purported new crusade against graft as "cosmetic" meant "to hoodwink voters."

But the government media steered clear of this angle. Instead, The Herald (19/1) attempted to summarily apportion blame for the country's financial mess to former RBZ governor Leonard Tsumba, whom it described as a "textbook economist" , while glorifying Gono.

The paper achieved this via a simplistic comparison of the performance of the two during their tenure at the central bank, concluding that, " Dr Gono has the full support of Government and President Mugabe. " But it remained silent over whether Tsumba enjoyed the same support during his tenure.

 

The continued selective interpretation of laws by government worsened by the biased reporting of the same, especially by the media it controls, threatens to severely compromise the effective delivery of justice in the country.

A recent example of this happened during the week when ZANU PF MPs breached Parliamentary procedures to bulldoze a second reading of the Land Acquisition Amendment Bill despite an adverse report by the Parliamentary Legal Committee (PLC) that the proposed law was unconstitutional.

The controversial amendment, which would make it easier for government to seize more land, mainly seeks to make preliminary notices in the government Gazette as constituting service of notice in writing upon the owners of the land that government wants to acquire as compared to the 30-day written notice that presently pertains.

While both sections of the Press reported on the event, especially the flare-up between MDC and ZANU PF MPs during consideration of the adverse report, none of the newspapers unequivocally pointed out what implications the ZANU PF MPs' disregard for parliamentary procedures meant to the rule of law.

Neither did they reconcile Parliament's role - to make laws that do not infringe the Constitution and Bill of Rights - with this latest assault on landowners' liberties.

ZBC was even more unprofessional because it failed to fully expose the circumstances leading to the Bill going for its second reading. For instance, ZTV (22/01, 7am) merely quoted the leader of the House, Patrick Chinamasa as having said, "the land reform programme is a political exercise that cannot be resolved through the courts" without analyzing the underlying implications of this statement. This alarming declaration clearly exposes government's disrespect for the law and the judicial process on matters that have a bearing on its political survival.

The Herald (22/1) also carried Chinamasa's comments and tried to blame the "disorderly conduct" of the MDC MPs for the disturbances while it remained silent on the racial attacks against MDC MP David Coltart by Chinamasa. This came after Coltart alleged that some 38 ZANU PF MPs owned farms and should not be allowed to debate the Bill because under parliamentary procedures, members with financial interests in matters under debate must declare them and recuse themselves.

Such double standards were unearthed by SW Radio Africa (22/01), The Tribune (23/1) and The Zimbabwe Independent (23/1). The Tribune , for example, also reported how ZANU PF chief whip Joram Gumbo "crossed the floor to confront Coltart" and "had to be dragged away by the sergeant-at-arms, Nicholas Marufu" .

In the same vein, The Zimbabwe Independent reported that ruling party MPs had accidentally "voted in favour of the (committee's) adverse report, which said the Bill breached constitutional provisions on property, but were asked to vote again when chairman of committees Lazarus Dokora realized the mistake."

The government-controlled media's selective reporting of issues also manifested itself in the way they covered the legal battle between the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ) and Information Minister Jonathan Moyo in conjunction with the Media Information Commission (MIC).

The Herald , Chronicle (23/1) and ZBC (23/01, 7am), for example, merely promoted Moyo's arguments in their stories by endorsing them as the law in themselves without verifying them independently.

Even arguments in The Herald (23/01) and The Sunday News (25/01) that the court rulings allowing the ANZ to resume publishing should be shelved since MIC had appealed against that in the Supreme Court were simplistic as they lacked independent corroboration on regulations governing appeals.

In fact, none of the media probed whether MIC, ruled as "improperly constituted" by the Administrative Court, has any legal or moral right to take the ANZ to court. In other words how valid are its appeals?

 

Claims by government opponents, especially the opposition MDC, that the government Press frequently falsifies or distorts their viewpoints were vindicated this week when High Court judge Justice Paddington Garwe ordered The Herald to retract a story in which the paper (22/01) blatantly distorted MDC leader Tsvangirai's testimony in his long-running treason trial.

Garwe made the ruling after Tsvangirai's lawyer, Advocate George Bizos, submitted that the newspaper should be found in contempt of court for misrepresenting the court proceedings, Studio 7 (22/01), ZTV (22/01, 8pm) The Business Tribune, The Zimbabwe Independent, The Sunday Mirror, The Standard and The Daily News (23/01).

The High Court judge concurred and noted that the headline, Tsvangirai implicates US Govt in coup plot , including the first part of the article implied that Tsvangirai was admitting to the treason charge to which he had pleaded not guilty.

The private Press quoted Garwe as saying: "For the avoidance of doubt, the accused denied the existence of such a plot. The reporter should ensure that a suitable correction of the report is made and the Attorney General should liaise with the editor of the paper to correct the misrepresentation."

While the paper carried a retraction the next day (23/1) it did not carry it with the same page one prominence as the original distortion - and nor did it tell its readers that the correction was made as a result of a court order.

Ends