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Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe
Media Update # 2002/04
January 28th – February 3rd 2002

CONTENTS
1. Political Violence
2. International Relations
3. The Campaign
4. The Electoral Process
5. The Media Bill
6. SW Radio Africa
7. Comments from our subscribers

1. NO END IN SIGHT TO LOPSIDED COVERAGE OF POLITICAL
VIOLENCE

The press carried 43 political violence related stories, of which two
appeared in both the private and public press.
Three new murders, all MDC members, were reported during the
week, all in the private press. ZANU PF members were allegedly
responsible.
Zimpapers carried 20 reports of political violence, of which 15 were
blamed on the MDC. Police arrests and court cases reported only
implicated the MDC.
TV recorded 15 incidents of political violence; four less than those
reported the previous week. The MDC was blamed for five, while
ZANU PF was identified as being responsible twice. Both parties
were blamed for the violence in one incident and there were seven
stories where the political affiliation of the perpetrators was not
mentioned. Like TV, Radio Zimbabwe reported two incidents of
political violence, seven less than the previous week. All of them
identified the MDC as being responsible.

In contrast, the private press carried 23 stories, in which ZANU PF
supporters and war veterans were implicated in 11 cases. The
remainder attributed the violence to the police, the army and the
National Youth Service. However, the private press also only
reported court cases in which ZANU PF stood accused.
MMPZ deplores this grossly lopsided coverage in both sections of
the Press. Such partisan perspectives appear to reflect the political
sympathies of the public and private Press and undermine their
credibility in so far as none of the papers are providing a fair and
balanced picture of what is actually going on. The privately owned
newspapers claim that the refusal by the police to cooperate with
them hampers their work in this respect and indeed, this is
sufficient reason for the police to restore their cooperation. The
public media on the other hand, have no excuse for suppressing
news of political violence, and particularly murder.
It can only be construed that such a cynical silence over the
murders and distortions of the truth in the public media is
presented in order to corroborate police claims that incidences of
violence declined during the week. And was this claim made to
impress the visiting SADC task force? The media couldn’t tell us.

2. INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: When diplomats distort

The CMAG decision coincided with the SADC task force visit to
Zimbabwe - a follow up to last year’s SADC heads of state meeting
in Blantrye.
And as proof that African countries were behind Zimbabwe, the
SADC task force chairperson, Lillian Patel, and Pan-Africanist
Congress (PAC) officials were quoted criticizing CMAG for putting
Zimbabwe on its agenda.
Patel (ZBC, 31/01, 8pm all stations) pre-empted her task force’s
findings when she said just one day after arriving in the country:
“Things have changed for the better…When you are here and
see what is going on, I don’t think it’s what you see in the
media. We see quite a number of papers in the streets, which
are opposition papers, and other papers, which are pro-
government. When they say that media is not free here, I don’t
know what that is…”
The reporter neither challenged this utterly egregious statement nor
attempted to correct the inaccurate impression that the political
opposition owns a newspaper. And her vacuous assessment of
Press freedom in Zimbabwe wasn’t explored by ZBC either.

3. THE CAMPAIGN: ZBC Zanu PF’s weapon

ZTV’s campaign for the ruling party took a subtle turn when it was
apparently extended to its Programme Line Up presentations. The
background for continuity presenters included a peasant farmer,
Great Zimbabwe, Heroes Acre and the Zimbabwean flag. All these
are symbols and images that ZANU PF is using in its campaign in
an attempt to invoke nationalist feelings. And at the end of the
programme line-up, ZTV has adopted a new and familiar slogan: “
Zimbabwe, OUR LAND, our Station”.

4. THE ELECTORAL PROCESS: Unprofessional selectivity

The Financial Gazette reported a worrying story about the
widespread and premature distribution by ZANU PF of unauthorised
ballot papers in rural areas and forcing people to put an X in favour
of President Mugabe. The paper sourced its story from teachers in
Mashonaland Central and Masvingo provinces. The ballot papers
were said to be genuine, but government officials denied the
allegations.

The Herald (29/01) provided its readers with half-baked news
concerning Justice Rita Makarau’s High Court ruling, passed the
previous week. The ruling, in favour of an application by MDC leader
Morgan Tsvangirai, ordered the Registrar-General to draw up a
single common voters’ roll for the presidential election, enabling the
electorate to cast their votes in any constituency.
The paper completely ignored that landmark order, but then gave
front-page attention to government’s intention to appeal to the
Supreme Court to reverse the ruling Readers of The Herald were
left with little understanding of the electoral implications of the
ruling, let alone news of the MDC’s legal victory.

MMPZ condemns this unprofessional selectivity by Zimpapers’
titles whose public and professional duty is to provide fair and
accurate coverage of news, especially significant electoral issues.
ZBC’s version of the ruling, which it had also omitted (ZTV, 29/01,
8pm), quoted National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) chairman,
Lovemore Madhuku, saying the judge had erred because she had
misinterpreted the Constitution in her ruling. But viewers who had
not read The Daily News (26/01) might have been confused about
what Madhuku was discussing.

5. THE MEDIA BILL

The Daily News did a good job of providing its readers with
informative daily accounts of the Bill’s parliamentary progress,
noting the Parliamentary Legal Committee’s prime objections to
the proposed legislation that would have given Information Minister,
Jonathan Moyo, extraordinary powers, even over the decisions of
the courts. It noted Justice Minister, Patrick Chinamasa’s
negotiations with the PLC and the critical amendments at the
second reading stage, as well as those made just before the Bill –
in a greatly diluted state – was finally pushed through Parliament.
While The Herald (30/1) also carried a general impression of the
PLC’s objections to the Bill, it failed to identify these in favour of a
long-winded description of section 20 of the constitution
guaranteeing freedom of expression. The report also focused on
Chinamasa’s negotiations with the PLC and that Attorney-General,
Andrew Chigovera, had defended some of the clauses in the Bill
that the PLC considered unconstitutional.

6. SW RADIO AFRICA:

Starting this week MMPZ will monitor SW Radio Africa throughout
the election period to assess the balance and bias of its
programmes.
Initial assessment suggests the station offers Zimbabwe’s civic
society and the opposition MDC a unique platform to air their views
on the situation in Zimbabwe. Such alternative voices are missing
from the country’s national broadcast media. But if its objective is
to be regarded as an authoritative and balanced source of news
and opinion, SW Radio Africa must take care to include all
mainstream political opinion in its programmes.

In the week monitored, the range of viewpoints sourced in the news
bulletins and current affairs programmes indicate a diversity of
voices, including those of the ruling Zanu PF, a situation MMPZ
applauds. However, in all its reports on political violence, the
station only sourced comment from MDC representatives, who
attributed all cases of violence to Zanu PF. The MDC is portrayed
as the victim in all instances.

7. FROM OUR SUBSCRIBERS

Sirs
We are surprised to note that your MMPZ Weekly Media Update
fails to comment upon the sustained and vitriolic attacks being
made upon the Amani Trust by The Herald and Sunday Mail
newspapers.
These papers devoted literally pages to such articles as:
"Amani Trust funding covert operation against Zanu-PF" - Herald
Front page - 17 January 2002
"Furore over exposure of MDC 'safe houses'" - Herald page 4 - 18
January 2002
"Amani Trust funds diverted to MDC" - Herald Front page - 19
January 2002
"Anti-State violence intensifies: Amani Trust, Pact in bid to oust
President from power" - Herald page 4 - 23 January 2002
"Amani Trust fanning political violence" - Sunday Mail page 9 - 27
January 2002
"Amani under probe: massive corruption, fraud alleged; major
objective violated" - Herald Front page - 28 January 2002.

Amani Trust is a member of this network of human rights NGOs -
the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum. On behalf of the
member organisations of the Human Rights Forum, we would like
to place on record our regret and disappointment that you did not
consider such vitriolic, unsubstantiated and patently absurd "news"
as worthy of comment in your weekly summaries of newspaper
reporting in Zimbabwe.
We regard this is a disservice to the NGO community as a whole
and in particular to the members of the Human Rights Forum.
Co-ordinator (on behalf of Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum)

From MMPZ: Thank you for message to MMPZ. We no longer
issue detailed reports via e-mail because most of our subscribers
were not happy with lengthy messages. We overcame this by
sending a summary of the report, which we circulate. Detailed
reports are available at http://www.icon.co.zw/mmpz, where you
can read our comments on the public's press's vitriol against
Amani Trust.

Shortwave broadcasts
Dear Monitors
I would be most grateful if you could include in your weekly report
at least some of the items broadcast to Zimbabwe from the new
SW RADIO AFRICA from studios in the UK. Also, the station
based in the Netherlands called Voice of the People, I think. I
looked at the BBC Monitoring Service daily reports, which I get
through Lexis-Nexis, but they do not do either of the "clandestine"
stations.
Best regards. EW

From MMPZ: Thanks for your comments. MMPZ began monitoring
the short wave broadcasts last week. Unfortunately, the reception
for Voice of the People is not good. We have communicated this to
their representatives in Zimbabwe and hope the problem will be
solved soon.

News Room
A local private information service, The News Room, has been
established to gather and disseminate all information relevant to
the current situation in Zimbabwe. The News Room will provide
updated information regarding, violence and intimidation, road
blocks and militia movements, voting and legislative issues,
availability of essential commodities, and all aspects pertaining to
the forthcoming elections. Contact: 091 337 694, 091 258 525, 023
405 267 or [email protected]. Only first-hand reports will be
accepted and disseminated
Ends

The full report can be read at our web site
http://www.icon.co.zw/mmpz

Send all comments and queries to the Project Coordinator, 15
Duthie Avenue, Aklexandra Park, Harare, E-mail:
[email protected]