State Media Scribes Top The List In Freelancing For International Media???

ZimJournalists Arise stumbled on this article written to the Zimbabwe Independent alleging that the people who are being accused of working for international interests are actually state media journalists. We thought we would circulate this letter that was written in this week’s Zimbabwe Independent and maybe hear some of your opinions on this.

The Central Intelligence Organisation are so pathetic and desperate that I feel sorry for President Mugabe, especially after reading a story on ZimOnline which revealed that he had instructed the agency to spy on journalists who write negative stories about the government using Internet cafés.

Most freelance journalists I know use their friends’ computers and Internet services.

It is with much sadness that I have to inform these "intelligence" services that 90% of online stories are written not by desperate unemployed journalists, but by those journalists employed by the state media.

Yes, you heard me right!

They write from the comfort of their state newsrooms and even use their government contacts to get information.
A senior correspondent in the state media once boasted that his salary was his beer money!

He said he could make up to a million dollars on a good month just from selling stories to the international media.
He has access to the kind of information that a poor, unemployed journalist would kill for, and he is always first at a breaking news event.

One of the most prolific online contributors is an award-winning senior state media sports journalist.

By and large, there are others (senior correspondents) at the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings and regular sources for the international media are found at the Ministry of Information. Who is fooling who?

Most of these guys have bank accounts in neighbouring countries. Asingadi mari ndiani (Who doesn’t like money?)
If the CIO wants names, then they should be prepared to pay through the nose for the information — in foreign currency. Alternatively, they could go through all the hard drives of those overworked state media computers.

Even if they manage to arrest all the "unpatriotic" journalists who use Internet cafés, nothing will change.
Wake up and smell the coffee.

Mwana Wevhu,

ZimJournalists Arise Does Not Take Responsibility For The Content Of This Report