MEDIA ALERT

19 NOVEMBER 2002

INFORMATION MINISTER ATTACKS PRIVATE MEDIA

Professor Jonathan Moyo, the minister of State for Information and Publicity
has attacked the private media for what he called its "anti-nation" and
"anti government" reporting.

Moyo, who was addressing army officers in Harare on 18 November, said that
the private media especially The Daily News was being used to by Western
powers to attack the government, the country's values and traditions.
"They are opposed to the history of the nation, they are opposed to the
values of the nation. they are anti-nation," said Moyo
"This has put us in conflict with certain interests. It survives on
sponsored criticism. It is a paper, which became the voice of farmers. It
distorted the whole land issue saying the land issue was disorderly and that
it was not done according to the rule of law," said Moyo.

He said The Daily News was obsessed with criticizing the government and
turned a blind eye to any wrongdoing or shortcomings of the British
government and the white world.
"They never ever, ever, find any wrong with the British, never find any
wrong with the white world who criticize the Zimbabwean leadership," said
Moyo.

Moyo added that the government couldn't defend the sovereignty of Zimbabwe
without such laws as the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act
(AIPPA). He said that AIPPA had brought "sanity" into the media industry as
some Zimbabwe journalists were being used in a conspiracy to topple the
government.

Moyo outlined the stance of the government on the state owned media. He said
that the state owned media is allowed to make its editorial decisions
freely.
"They are allowed to make their own editorial decisions and if they are
going to criticize the government they should criticize what they know. We
see them not as a government media but a national media," said Moyo.

He however pointed out that the reasons why the government invested in the
media at independence in 1980 was to safeguard the media from colonial
apartheid media institutions.
"There was no way we could allow our national media to be controlled by
apartheid media institutions," he said.

END

Rashweat Mukundu
Research and Information Officer
MISA-Zimbabwe
221 Fife Ave
Box HR 8113
Harare
Zimbabwe

Phone: 00 263 4 721 841, 735 441-2
Cell : 00 263 4 011 602 685
E mail: [email protected] [2]