eNewsletters & mailing lists

MEDIA UPDATE # 2001/11

Monday 12th March to Sunday 18th March 2001

2001-03-26, Issue 15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/enewsl/160

Printer friendly version

Of note in the week is the extent to which the Zimbabwe Independent (March 16) relied on unconfirmed reports for its front-page stories. Although it is generally accepted that the privately owned media is severely handicapped when trying to access information from government and the public due to the politically intolerant climate, in the interests of the public, of fairness and of its own credibility, the media have an obligation to seek and publish comment from opposing sides. In The Zimbabwe Independent's stories however, there was no indication that the reporters had tried to access comment from
the government, Zanu PF, Department of Information or the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.

MEDIA UPDATE # 2001/11
Monday 12th March to Sunday 18th March 2001


ASSESSED:
1. Report on broadcasting regulations receives muffled coverage
2. Violence: State media ignores "state" violence
3. Jurists visit: Media omits essential detail
4. Press gives satisfactory coverage to fuel situation


SUMMARY
Of note in the week is the extent to which the Zimbabwe
Independent (March 16) relied on unconfirmed reports for its
front-page stories. All four reports, “Government Seizes IPG
fuel”, “Zanu PF wants Chanakira out”, “More purges at state
media” and “RBZ to fix exchange rate,” only relied on
“authoritative” anonymous sources and failed to balance them
by verifying the allegations with the parties involved.
Although it is generally accepted that the privately owned
media is severely handicapped when trying to access
information from government and the public due to the
politically intolerant climate, in the interests of the public, of
fairness and of its own credibility, the media have an obligation
to seek and publish comment from opposing sides. In The
Zimbabwe Independent’s stories however, there was no
indication that the reporters had tried to access comment from
the government, Zanu PF, Department of Information or the
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.
The public was also subjected to similar bias in the state owned
Zimpapers and ZBC. Some of the major issues of the week, such
as the controversy over the legitimacy of the adverse report on
broadcasting regulations, an international jurists’ fact-finding
mission to Zimbabwe and political violence allegedly perpetrated by
the opposition, would have greatly benefited from an equitable
allocation of voices from the opposition and political commentators.



1. REPORT ON BROADCASTING REGULATIONS RECEIVES
MUFFLED COVERAGE
The parliamentary legal committee’s report on the broadcasting
regulations attracted wide media response in the week.
Attorney General Chigovera defended the regulations, which, he
said, complied with section 20 (2) of the Constitution (ZBC TV,
15/3, 8pm & 17/3, 8pm “Question and Answer”). It was difficult to
make sense of the report not only because of unexplained legal
jargon, but also because it failed to mention that the parliamentary
committee’s report the previous week, had found some sections of
the regulations to be unconstitutional.
This week’s reports merely reiterated the government’s original
position that airwaves are a “finite resource” and therefore needed
to be regulated. Regulation of the airwaves is necessary only to
allow for the orderly use of the airwaves. It should not be used as a
means of government control over who has access to the airwaves
and what is broadcast.
In all bulletins monitored, ZBC Radio ignored the discourse
altogether. Instead it chose to use its bulletins to air a Zanu (PF)
invitation calling all Zanu PF parliamentarians to an extraordinary
meeting on the broadcasting Bill (14/3 6pm and 8pm ZBCTV &
Radio 15/03 6am-8am). Radio 2/4 (17/3, 6am and ZBCTV 16/3
8pm) quoted Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs,
Patrick Chinamasa, denying The Daily News and The Zimbabwe
Independent stories reporting that he had criticized Edison Zvobgo
and Kumbirai Kangai. Kangai and Zvobgo are members of the
Parliamentary Legal committee.
The Herald (16/03) and The Daily News (16/03) reported that
Chinamasa, had declared the parliamentary report “null and void”
because the Legal Committee tasked with the evaluation of the
regulations had failed to beat the deadline. Although the facts in
the two papers were essentially the same, it is noteworthy that The
Daily News (16/03) headline, “Chinamasa hits out at Zvobgo,
Kangai” was misleading. The headline gave the impression that
these were intra-party wrangles, whereas the issue was clearly
about whether parliamentary procedure had been followed in writing
and tabling the report.
The Standard’s (18/03) follow-up to the issue, headlined,
‘Chinamasa lied’, was weakened by an over-dependence on just
one member of the committee, MDC MP, Welshman Ncube. The
headline and the subtitle “Report to Parliament cheap politicking”
hinged on accusations refuted by Chinamasa, who challenged
Ncube to produce minutes of the report.



2. VIOLENCE: STATE MEDIA IGNORES “STATE” VIOLENCE
The state media has consistently ignored the massive human
rights abuses perpetrated by police and the army in the high-
density suburbs in favour of reports about violence allegedly
perpetrated by the opposition. The reverse is true about the private
press (The Daily News), which has consistently covered violence in
the high-density suburbs and rarely reported stories implicating the
MDC. But the court story in The Herald (13/03) ‘MDC youths
charged with public violence’, did not only limit itself to the court
proceedings of 14 MDC youths who allegedly attacked six
Mabvuku residents for defecting to the MDC, as it should have
done, it also unnecessarily referred to cases of the MDC president,
Tsvangirai and his vice, Gibson Sibanda. Although the ZBC quoted
Learnmore Jongwe accusing Zanu (PF) of staging the alleged
defections (ZBC, 12/3, 8pm) the editorial decision in placing stories
of alleged violence next to other crime reports perpetuates a Zanu
(PF)-created stereotype that the MDC is a violent party. A report on
13/3 8pm (ZBCTV) in which three alleged defectors said that
Jongwe could not deny defections when youths were appearing in
court for attacking defectors was positioned next to a crime story.
Another ZBCTV report on the 15th (8pm) not only billed the alleged
MDC assault on defectors in the headline alongside a general
crime report, but sandwiched the story between two crime stories
in the body of the story.
The private press, particularly the Daily News, has generally been
focused and consistent in reporting political violence and human
rights abuses by agents of the state, political parties and war
veterans, but has been guilty of the same bias as the state media.
For example, the stories ‘Man’s leg broken after agreeing to testify
against MP: Court told’ (12/03), War vets linked to cabbage theft
(13/03), and Mahachi allegedly threatened to kill MDC supporters
(15/03) projected the MDC as victims of political violence and Zanu
PF as the perpetrators. The Daily News chose to omit stories
reflecting the opposite.




3. JURISTS VISIT- MEDIA OMITS ESSENTIAL INFORMATION


The state-media reported an international jurists’ meeting with
President Mugabe from the basis of unsubstantiated claims of
Ministers Moyo and Chinamasa. The private press on the other
hand, completely failed in its duties as a media to provide
information about the visit. It only gave coverage to the visit when it
printed a statement from the jurists countering Minister
Chinamasa’s accusations.
All media presented one-perspective reports on this visit. ZBC and
Zimpapers reported and prominently positioned the jurists’ meeting
with President Mugabe and emphasized Minister Moyo and
Chinamasa’s views that the fact-finding mission was “stage-
managed” because they had only held meetings with whites and
those against the land reform (ZBC, 16/3, 8pm and Zimpapers
dailies, 17/3.) However, basic information was missing from their
reports. Who are these jurists? Who did they visit? What were the
terms of reference of their visit? This information was easily and
readily available from the jurists themselves.
The Standard (18/03) only gave the views of the International Bar
Association (IBA). In the story ‘Bar Association dismisses
remarks’, the paper reported that the IBA stated that it had been
disappointed by Minister Chinamasa’s comments because they
had not even written the report that would reflect their conclusions.
The Daily News (20/03- not in the week reviewed) made a delayed
effort to give the same views of the jurists regarding Chinamasa’s
criticism.
The official views continued to dominate in The Herald (19/03) with
claims that “there were some judges who went out of their way
to attack war veterans”. This was given as the explanation to the
IBA on why relations between the war vets and the judges had
deteriorated.



4. PRESS GIVES SATISFACTORY COVERAGE TO FUEL
SITUATION
The acute shortage of fuel in Harare was given due prominence and
adequate coverage in the press. The Herald (13/03) reported that
the crisis could be attributed to the failure by NOCZM to pay for the
product before it was pumped from Feruka in Mutare.
The Daily News (16/03) also gave due prominence to the
deteriorating fuel crisis. The paper attributed the crisis to scarce
foreign currency and the floods in Mozambique that are said to
have hampered some fuel deliveries in Zimbabwe. However, the fuel
position was not clear to members of the public. Whilst The Herald
(17/03) and radio 1/3 (17/03 6am-8am) announced that a $9 billion
oil facility had been secured with a US financial institution, The
Sunday Mail (18/03) and the electronic media (18/03 8pm) reported
that Minister Simba Makoni was leading a delegation to South
Africa which included the Minister of Mines and Energy whose
main mission was to negotiate with Sasol Trading International, to
normalize the fuel shortages. The report quoted Makoni, who said
the fuel situation would only go back to normal when the economy
recovered.
Ends


This report was produced and distributed by the Media Monitoring
Project Zimbabwe, 221 Fife Avenue, Harare, Tel/fax: 263 4 734207,
733486, E-mail: monitors@mweb.co.zw, Web:
http://www.icon.co.zw/mmpz
Feel free to respond to MMPZ. We cannot be able to respond to
every message but we will look at each message. Also, please feel
free to circulate this message.
Previous MMPZ reports and alerts can be accessed at our website,
http://www.icon.co.zw/mmpz
All queries and comments should be addressed to the Project
Coordinator.
To un/subscribe send a request to monitors@mweb.co.zw

↑ back to top