MEDIA MONITORING PROJECT (ZIMBABWE)
Weekly Media Update No. 47
November 24th - November 30th 2003

CONTENTS
1. General Comment
2. THE CHOGM SUMMIT: Omissions and distortions
3. The Kadoma by election
4. Figurative fiction.and other omissions

1. GENERAL COMMENT

ANY hope that The Daily News would return to the streets before the end of
the year were dashed during the week when the judge hearing the latest
application by the paper's publishers, Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe,
was obliged to recuse himself from any further involvement in the hearing.
This arose from a story in The Herald (25/11) reporting that Justice
Michael Majuru had told relatives that he would rule in favour of the ANZ in
their application seeking permission to publish while awaiting the outcome
of an appeal to the Supreme Court by the government Media and Information
Commission against an earlier Administrative Court ruling (made by the same
judge).
The main sources for this story appeared to be the MIC's own lawyer,
Johannes Tomana, who is evidently an interested party, and an affidavit from
a nurse, who was said to be related to the judge, in which she claimed that
the judge had told her uncle, in her presence, that he would rule in favour
of the ANZ.
If true, it would appear that Majuru's actions were indeed irregular but
does not presuppose Tomana's accusations reported in The Herald story that
Majuru was biased and had made pre-determined judgments. Given the
circumstances of the case, whose main arguments had already been heard,
these allegations are, at the very least, open to doubt.
But instead of treating this sensitive "discovery" with caution and respect,
the paper transformed the alleged incident into a witch-hunt by claiming
that "relevant authorities have opened investigations into the conduct of a
judge." under its lead headline, Judge Under Probe.
And instead of telling its readers who the 'relevant authorities' were, the
paper merely referred to "authoritative sources" confirming the
investigation and quoted "one source" saying "Various arms of law
enforcement are investigating the matter."
Such a claim carries seriously threatening implications and it is the
responsibility of the media to avoid being party to such intimidating
innuendo without clearly stating which authorities were investigating the
judge and why they were doing so, particularly with reference to a senior
member of the judiciary.
The story was published on the morning Majuru was due to give his ruling in
the case and it was not surprising to read the following day (The Herald,
26/11) that the judge had recused himself in the matter. The civic
organization, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, later issued a statement
accusing The Herald of colluding with "forces within the state that do not
believe in the rule of law" to demonize sections of the judiciary.
In a statement reported only by the Zimbabwe Independent (28/11), ZLHR's
director, Arnold Tsunga, said the allegations reported in The Herald
amounted to a personal attack against Majuru and that the main motive for
the story was to prolong the closure of The Daily News and extend the state'
s assault on Zimbabweans' right to freedom of expression.
"The attack on Mr Majuru is a deliberate reminder to the judiciary by those
forces within the state that do not believe in the rule of law that they are
at risk if they make rulings that are seen to be against the state or the
ruling party," Tsunga is quoted as saying.
He was also quoted saying that "The pattern of events.shows that the state
is determined to 'use the law' to subvert justice and ensure that The Daily
News does not get published again."
According to the Independent, Tsunga said that if Tomana had been genuinely
concerned with Majuru's conduct, the remedy would not have been for the MIC'
s lawyer to rush to the Press, but to have made an application for Majuru to
recuse himself.
The government-controlled media's record as undisguised propaganda tools of
the ruling party lends credibility to these sentiments.

2. THE CHOGM SUMMIT: OMISSIONS AND DISTORTION

Since the closure of The Daily News, the government-controlled media have
clearly demonstrated their capacity to omit and distort important news, and
in the case of The Herald this week to deliberately publish falsehoods that
misinform its readers. While the world's news agencies reported on Tuesday
November 25th that Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo had declared that
Zimbabwe would not be invited to the Commonwealth Heads of Government
Meeting in Abuja, The Herald (26/11) stated that ".Obasanjo reiterated
yesterday that he was still to invite President Mugabe."
The Herald's story, headlined 'Obasanjo yet to invite President', also
stated: "News agency reports said the Nigerian leader told reporters.that he
had visited Harare last week to assess the situation in Zimbabwe." But it
deliberately omitted the fact that Obasanjo had actually said: "We will not
have an invitation (for Zimbabwe). If there is no invitation they will not
come. I visited Zimbabwe last week to appraise myself of the current
situation."
These comments were first reported only in the local Press the following day
in the two weekly papers The Business Tribune and the Financial Gazette
(27/11). The national public broadcaster, ZBC, committed the lesser sin of
simply ignoring Obasanjo's statement altogether.
The falsehood that Obasanjo was still deciding whether or not to invite
Mugabe shames the paper that published it and the reporter who was made to
write it. But it also provides an insight into the thinking of those
officials who manage the content of the government-controlled media and
their attitude towards alternative sources of information.
Despite the fact that these 'spin-doctors' must have known the truth would
become apparent, they were well aware that no other alternative, independent
mass medium exists in Zimbabwe to inform the public accurately on the matter
and that the falsehood would escape the scrutiny of all but the niche
markets of the independent weekly papers and the radio station Studio 7,
which broke the news (25/11). Not only does this represent dishonesty in the
extreme and a dereliction of The Herald's duty to inform its readers, but it
is also a cynical exploitation of the gap created by the banning of The
Daily News.

In fact Zimbabweans dependant on the government media were never told that
Obasanjo had declined to invite Zimbabwe to CHOGM and they had to read
between the lines of the comments made by President Mugabe at the funeral of
national hero, Norman Zikhali, to guess that Zimbabwe's frantic diplomatic
efforts to be invited had failed. ZBC (28/11 all stations 6pm and 8pm) and
The Herald and Chronicle (29/11) reported Mugabe as saying: "If our
sovereignty is what we have to lose to be readmitted into the Commonwealth,
well, we will say goodbye to the Commonwealth and perhaps time has come to
say so."
The papers did not give a context to this comment and even gave the
impression that Zimbabwe might still be invited to CHOGM. ZBC's 3FM (29/11,
6am) concurred. By the close of the week The Sunday Mail (30/11) was still
insisting that a last minute invitation was still possible, but reported an
unnamed diplomat saying that Zimbabwe should not attend because "Nigeria has
failed to handle the matter properly by succumbing to pressure from the
white Commonwealth." Another "African diplomat" was quoted as saying that
now Nigeria had given in to pressure from the "white Commonwealth", ".the
black Commonwealth should go to Abuja to kill the Commonwealth."
The Financial Gazette's ambiguous story initially reporting Obasanjo's
remarks, also observed that Nigeria had "ditched" Zimbabwe "after being
pressurized by miffed critics who are not swayed by arguments that Zimbabwe
has progressed towards fulfilling the benchmarks set as conditions for its
readmission into the Club." But its analysis on the possible effects of
Obasanjo's decision provided more detail of these benchmarks, including the
demands for a return to the rule of law and the repeal of repressive
legislation restricting freedom of expression and the right to freedom of
assembly and association.
While The Herald reported Mugabe as saying, "Maybe the time has come for
Africa to meet the world as a powerful equal.", the Financial Gazette quoted
political analyst Eliphas Mukonoweshuro expressing a more realistic view of
the row over Zimbabwe: "In a way the government acknowledges that it has
been suspended and for them to say that the suspension has expired when they
have not even started attending to the causes of the suspension is
diplomatic immaturity."
The comment in The Business Tribune, entitled 'Zimbabwe has to do more to
appeal to outside world', reflected a similar opinion, as did The Standard
(30/11), which believed that Mugabe had brought Zimbabwe's exclusion upon
himself.

ZTV (28/11) however, stuck to Mugabe's version of why Zimbabwe had been
excluded from CHOGM and like all other government media, ignored the
original reasons for the country's suspension from the Commonwealth
Councils. It simply reported, ".Australian Prime Minister John Howard.at the
forefront of spearheading the isolation of Zimbabwe has again launched a
blistering attack on the country's re-admission into the Commonwealth."
(28/11,8pm).

Radio Zimbabwe (29/11, 6am) took a cue from this and only announced in
passing that "President Mugabe has criticized some African states for
failing to maintain their sovereignty and giving in to the West's demands,
in an apparent attack on Obasanjo.
However, ZTV (30/11, 8pm) carried mitigating comments from Zimbabwe's High
Commissioner to South Africa, S.K. Moyo: "Zimbabwe is fully aware of the
pressures on Nigeria by the white Commonwealth.despite the decision taken by
Nigeria, Nigeria remains Zimbabwe's friend.".
Earlier, ZTV (28/11, 8pm) reported that ".Southern African foreign ministers
are expected to meet in Pretoria tonight to discuss the decision not to
invite Zimbabwe to the CHOGM summit."
By contrast, Studio 7 (28/11) reported that "Southern African foreign
ministers have rejected Zimbabwe's call for an African boycott of the
Commonwealth heads of government in Nigeria.Nigeria refused to invite it
[Zimbabwe] .over human rights abuses."
ZTV (30/11, 6pm) also quoted S.K. Moyo's denial of this: "Minister Mudenge
impressed upon the SADC troika that Zimbabwe encouraged SADC, and indeed
other Commonwealth members, to attend CHOGM.and speak vehemently with one
voice against.John Howard.and Don McKinnon's machinations on Zimbabwe."

3. KADOMA BY-ELECTION

Also of extreme concern to MMPZ was the virtual blackout of news and
information about the Kadoma parliamentary by-election, which was held at
the end of the week, by all the media, but particularly by The Herald and
the Chronicle. The only story they carried on the impending event was one in
which William Bango, the spokesman for opposition party leader Morgan
Tsvangirai, was accused of lying to the media that Tsvangirai had been
arrested in Kadoma (28/11). The police were reported as saying they had only
detained one of the MDC leader's bodyguards after allegations that he had
beaten up a member of the public. Assistant Commissioner Wayne Bvudzijena
was reported as saying Tsvangirai had simply accompanied his bodyguard to
the police station.
SW Radio Africa however, quoted Bango (27/11) to substantiate its claim that
"Tsvangirai (was) briefly detained in Kadoma during pre-election chaos and
violence."
Without any other sources of information, the truth of the matter was never
unequivocally resolved. But The Herald used the opportunity to insert its
own gratuitous opinion into its story, claiming that "The MDC has the
tendency of instigating or stage managing violence to claim harassment by
the State as a way to smear the country's image ahead of international
summits." The paper was referring to CHOGM.
In fact, none of the media paid this important by-election any attention at
all. There was no attempt to examine all the elements of the electoral
process, or even to examine who the candidates were and what they were
promising the electorate. All of this important information was completely
ignored. Only The Sunday Mail and Sunday News carried short stories on the
first day's polling, referring to the election as being marred by voted
apathy. And while they only referred in passing to "isolated disturbances on
Thursday", only SW Radio Africa reported (27/11) the MDC candidate as saying
that the police had arrested all the MDC's polling agents.
Clearly, the tense and hostile political climate in the constituency was
severely under-reported, and given the fact that the electoral process has
been so badly compromised in past elections, it was surprising that the
independent media made no effort to subject the whole democratic process of
this election to careful examination. It is, of course, incumbent on the
public media to fulfill this duty too, but once again the departure of The
Daily News has allowed them to escape the responsibility of discharging this
crucial role.

4. FIGURATIVE FICTION

Another cynical act of misinformation is the persistence of the
government-controlled media in exaggerating the numbers of people resettled
under the government's so-called land reforms.
On the same day that it published the fabricated Obasanjo story, The Herald
(26/11) also stated that ".government has resettled more than 300,000
families on farms acquired from former white commercial farmers." and that
"At least 54,000 other new farmers successfully applied for land under the
commercial farming resettlement model."
Despite the fact that the paper has published the findings of the Utete
committee on land reform, which states that only 127,000 families have so
far been resettled under the government's A1 model and just 7,500 under the
A2 scheme, The Herald (and all government media) continue to repeat the
exaggerated figures, as Muckraker in the Zimbabwe Independent (28/11)
pointed out. Since The Herald has published the correct figures, this can
only represent another falsehood designed to inflate the success of the land
reforms at the expense of the truth.
MMPZ condemns this gross manipulation of the news.

.and other omissions

Apart from one story in The Financial Gazette addressing the collapse of
Zimbabwe's health delivery sector, the privately owned Press all but ignored
this crisis, which has been exacerbated by the doctors' and nurses' strike.
Zimpapers publications did rather better.
For example, The Herald (25/11) story, Patients turned away from hospitals,
said nurses had gone on strike again "barely three weeks" after they
returned to work, whilst senior doctors also reportedly joined in protest
against the way their junior and middle-level colleagues had been handled.
This news was also carried on SW Radio Africa that same evening, which also
reported that ".besides the salary disputes, doctors say they cannot work
without basic supplies like gloves and medication." and also revealed that
"patients are going without food in some hospitals as suppliers have not
been paid." (25/11).
But this was missing from ZTV's report (24/11, 8pm), which merely announced,
"As the strike by nurses entered its third day, the government has deployed
nurses from the uniformed forces."
It was left to SW Radio Africa to explain, ".the health sector has
completely collapsed in Zimbabwe.patients are literally dying at hospitals
without anyone [to attend to them]" (25/11).
But The Herald (26/11) did report that Harare Hospital had closed some
wards, while The Sunday News (30/11) also reported wards being closed at
Mpilo Hospital.
Disturbingly, only Studio 7 announced, ".riot police cracked down on nurses
at the ZINA offices." (25/11), bearing testimony to government's desperate
attempts to contain a situation that is already out of control.
Ends

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: [email protected]

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