Latest Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe Report
November 20th- November 26th 2006
Weekly Media Update 2006-47

1.General comment
THE private media continued to pay attention to rights violations in the country. This week they carried 14 stories on rights abuses and recorded seven new incidents. These included the arrest of university students, members of the public and farmers, harassment of civic bodies and retribution against MDC supporters suspected of voting for the opposition in the October rural district council elections.

All the stories presented state security agents and ZANU PF activists as the perpetrators. However, the private radio stations largely failed to balance the victims’ allegations with official comment.
For example, SW Radio Africa (23/11) reported the MDC claiming that its supporters in most parts of rural Masvingo had “fled their homes and sought refuge in Masvingo town following threats to their lives by ZANU PF supporters and traditional chiefs”.

Reportedly, the ruling party activists were “spearheading the campaign to get rid of all MDC elements” in some parts of the province and forcing opposition supporters to “pay $2000 fines” for attending MDC rallies. No comment was sought from the police nor was there any indication that the station had tried to do so.

Although the private electronic media are operating under extremely difficult conditions, their persistent failure to indicate that they have tried to corroborate such claims or to obtain official comment damages the credibility of their reports that rely on a single source, especially an interested party.
The government media simply ignored the abuses, which of course, constitutes a total dereliction of their professional duty to inform their audiences.

In fact, the media’s inadequate coverage of topical issues was reflected by their failure to fully inform their audiences on the developments at the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR) and the ACP-EU meetings during the week.
Except for the three stories the niche market private electronic media featured, the rest of the mainstream media ignored these important events in which the country’s deteriorating human rights situation came under scrutiny.

Even then, the private electronic media’s treatment of these issues was misleading.
New Zimbabwe.com (22/11), for example, erroneously reported that Zimbabwe’s long-delayed periodic report to ACHPR’s 40th session had been “snubbed”. This was false because it was not on the agenda and therefore not subject to discussion. In fact, the commission acknowledged receipt of the report and filed it for future consideration.
The media’s failure to accurately cover such contemporary issues reflects the level of ineptitude that exists in Zimbabwe’s media services today, while the failure to report breaking stories indicates a lack of urgency in the newsrooms of these organisations that appears to have developed as a result of a lack of journalistic competition in the country’s devastated media landscape. In the case of the government-controlled media however, it is not just professional laziness that sees them omitting important news from their bulletins and newspapers, but a wilful act of suppression, especially in respect of stories that reflect badly on the government or the ruling party.

2.Image building
THIS week the government media used President Mugabe’s visit to Iran and government’s hosting of various regional meetings to paper over the country’s pariah status. They carried 38 stories on these matters, of which 21 appeared in the official Press while ZBH aired 17.
Almost all their reports passively rehashed official statements that sought to portray the country as enjoying sound international relations.

As a result, there was no critical assessment of how exactly the country would benefit from the trip and the meetings. For example, ZBH (22/11, main bulletins) announced that “six agreements were signed” between Zimbabwe and Iran resulting in a “memorandum of understanding on social, political and economic affairs.”
Similarly, Spot FM (23/11, 8pm) simply claimed that the “lives of millions are to improve through various agreements reached at the Comesa summit” and other regional meetings the country hosted without explaining how.
Neither did it provide information on the agreements.

Instead, the official broadcaster seemed more interested in sprucing up the images of the two countries, which it alleged were victims of unwarranted Western demonisation. While Iran was unreasonably being vilified for its “nuclear programme”, ZBH claimed (20/11, morning bulletins) that Zimbabwe was unjustifiably being ostracised for its “land reform”.
No attempt was made to honestly discuss the reasons behind the West’s concerns over the two countries.
Instead, ZTV and Spot FM (20/11, 8pm) passively quoted Mugabe narrowly blaming the West for the chaos in Iraq and lambasting US President George Bush for naming Zimbabwe and Iran as part of the “axis of evil”. He contended that it was the West that were the “actual evil doers” Zimbabwe and Iran had to fight “in order to re-establish a multi-polar world”.

The official Press’ reports were cut from the same cloth.
The Herald and Chronicle (21/11), for example, passively reported Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad exalting Mugabe as a “prominent, influential and just leader, a person who loves freedom” and a “leading fighter against colonialism on the African continent”.
Without reconciling such remarks with the situation on the ground, particularly state-sanctioned human rights violations, they then reported (22/11) Iran as having pledged to “stand by Zimbabwe” and condemn the “illegal economic sanctions imposed against Harare by the West”.

Besides allowing Iran to dishonestly present the targeted travel sanctions imposed on the ruling elite as a trade embargo, the papers did not explain the actual reasons behind their imposition.
The official media’s attempt to gloss over the country’s isolation was also apparent in the manner they handled the country’s hosting of regional ministerial meetings and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) summit.

Instead of examining the import of the meetings, these media narrowly projected them as yet another affirmation of the international community’s confidence in Zimbabwe.
For instance, The Herald (21/11) claimed that contrary to “blatant lies peddled by the Western propaganda machinery” that Zimbabwe was isolated, the country’s membership to Comesa “shows it has never been out of the family of nations”.

The government media’s selective use of favourable statements by foreign diplomats to distort the country’s true international status and their failure to professionally handle the matter was reflected in their sourcing patterns.
Notably, none of the official media tried to balance their reports with alternative views.
Except for the Mirror group, the rest of the 11 stories that the private media carried (Press 9, electronic media 2) did not see anything beneficial from the presidential visit to Iran and the regional summits, which they generally ignored.
They noted that the Iran visit would not benefit Zimbabwe’s economy and would actually result in further mortgaging the country’s mineral resources.

For example, Studio 7 (21/11) and The Financial Gazette (23/11) revealed that Zimbabwe had “agreed to supply Iran with (several) minerals” to settle its debt. The Zimbabwe Independent and SW Radio Africa (24/11) carried similar reports noting that previous deals Mugabe had signed with various countries to halt Zimbabwe’s economic decline had not yielded the desired results.

In addition, the two pointed out that although Zimbabwe had granted Russia and China mineral rights in an effort to attract economic aid from the East, the region has so far “not given Mugabe credit lines”.

This, SW Radio Africa observed, was due to the “lawless business environment” that government had created in the country.
Although the private media carried fewer stories, they critically handled the subject as illustrated by the private electronic media’s balanced sourcing pattern.

3.Economy and corruption
THE official media continued to bury the extent of the country’s economic decline and its actual causes in stories that projected government’s economic turnaround strategies as paying dividends.
For example, 85% of the 40 stories the official Press carried on the economy were glowing reports on measures the authorities were taking to address the country’s haemorrhaging economy. The remaining six narrowly blamed corruption for the country’s economic distress, characterised by the galloping cost of living, commodity shortages, decaying infrastructure and poor service delivery.

But instead of interpreting these issues in light of government’s mismanagement record, the papers simply presented the authorities as working tirelessly to clean up the mess.
The Herald (20/11), for example, unquestioningly revealed that government would renew its US$50 million fuel deal with French bank BNP Paribas “as it battles to address the fuel woes dogging the country”.
No attempt was made to probe the source of the funds or discuss the quantity of fuel to be procured under the facility in relation to the country’s requirements.

Likewise, The Sunday Mail (26/11) merely announced – without analysis - that the authorities had struck deals with Russian and Iranian companies to build power plants in their efforts to boost the country’s ailing capacity to generate electricity.
ZBH was no different in its 38 stories on the topic.
It highlighted symptoms of economic decline in isolation of government policies and passively allowed officials to narrowly blame business for the economic chaos while defending their turn-around strategies.
For example, Spot FM and ZTV (22/11, 8pm) allowed Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa to blame business for commodity shortages saying his 2007 budget, which would be premised on a “promising agricultural season” would “deal with unscrupulous business people who create artificial shortages” without explaining how.

ZTV also simply granted Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono carte blanche to present a deceitful defence of the printing of money as a “necessary evil” that would lay “the basis for stability and recovery for future generations”. The negative ramifications of such policies on the country’s struggling economy were utterly ignored.
The official media’s reluctance to examine the authorities’ policy deficiencies complemented their efforts to promote government measures as an antidote for the ailing economy.

It was against this background that The Herald and Chronicle (20/11) passively reported Employers’ Confederation of Zimbabwe official David Govere claiming that the country’s economy “would recover” next year because of the government’s NEDPP and stakeholders’ “unprecedented determination to rectify macro-economic fundamentals…”
The government papers’ biased coverage in defence of government policies was illustrated by their dependence on official voices.
Although ZBH’s sourcing pattern appeared fairly balanced,the views raised by its commentators were either buried in official pronouncements or used to endorse government policies.

The private media remained candid about the country’s gloomy economic outlook and its root causes in the 55 stories they carried on the subject. Of these, 50 appeared in the private papers and five in the private electronic media.
The stories reported news of commodity shortages, price increases, the drastic decline in industrial productivity, mismanagement of state-owned enterprises, crippling forex shortages and the continued weakening value of the local currency.

In one of the stories, The Daily Mirror (20/11) revealed that several companies in the manufacturing sector were “operating at below 10% capacity”, adding that Olivine Industries had “ceased the production of cooking oil owing to the unavailability of raw materials”.
SW Radio Africa (22/11) and The Financial Gazette (23/11) quoted economists and business attributing such problems and commodity shortages to government’s failed economic policies.

In fact, the Gazette noted that the much-publicized NEDPP was “heading for the dustbin” as government was now “drafting its successor”. It quoted economists saying the crafting of another economic blueprint was not only “an admission of failure to fix the crisis by the government” but demonstrated “confusion” surrounding the country’s economic management.
The Zimbabwe Independent concurred, noting that NEDPP had “missed almost all of its targets”.

As further evidence of government’s failed policies, Studio 7 (24/11) quoted economist John Robertson warning that the local currency would slide to US$1:ZW$4000 by end of December and “plummet to $18,000 by end of 2007” on the parallel market “unless the government institutes bold economic and political reforms”.
The Gazette and Independent also followed up on the alleged plundering of state enterprises by government officials.

While the Gazette provided more details on the alleged involvement of Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo in the ZUPCO scandal, the Independent announced that Parliament intended to summon government officials implicated in the pillaging of Ziscosteel (Zisco) to “explain themselves”.

Although the official media referred to these issues, all six corruption stories either projected government as committed to stemming graft, or simply reported on the official dismissal of allegations of corruption by the authorities.

The private media’s critical assessment of the country’s continuing economic crisis was reflected by the private papers’ attempts to balance official voices with comments from those outside government.

The MEDIA UPDATE was produced and circulated by the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe, 15 Duthie Avenue, Alexandra Park, Harare, Tel/fax: 263 4 703702, E-mail: monitors@mmpz.org.zw

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