MEDIA ALERT

28 OCTOBER 2002

ZIMBABWE'S FIRST INFORMATION MINISTER CALLS FOR TOUGHER MEDIA LEGISLATION

DR Nathan Shamuyarira, the first information minister in the
post-independent Zimbabwean government told journalists in Kadoma that if he
were still running the media in the country he would have called for tougher
pieces of legislation to regulate the media.

Shamuyarira was responding to questions from journalists on whether or not
it was necessary to have a repressive media law such as the Access to
Information and the Protection of Privacy Act.

"I have not read it fully, but if I was still running the media I would have
called for tougher legislation because of the war situation prevailing," he
said. "How can a foreign government say it wants to remove the Zimbabwean
government using non-governmental organizations and the media? I would not
have tolerated that - but the Press during my time was free but the
situation has changed. It is now being used as an instrument to overthrow a
government."

Shamuyarira, a veteran journalist and the ruling Zanu (PF) party
spokesperson, told The Daily News that for one to practise as a journalist
one did not need a specific academic qualification. Zimbabwe's media law
prescribes qualifications for one to be a writer.

"You only need to be honest, truthful, objective and able to express
yourself and be patriotic," Shamuyarira said. "Winston Churchill, I think,
was the best writer of his time in the United Kingdom, but he even failed
matrix examination but he had a gift of writing. But in the present
situation I would just want the quality of your writing."

He said the original aim to have a state-owned media was not to turn that
media into government mouthpieces, but to give Zimbabweans a free voice and
to allow journalists to be independent.

Shamuyarira, told The Daily News that soon after independence the government
received money from Nigeria which it used to buy shares in the Argus Group,
a newspaper organization and created the Zimbabwe Newspapers (1980) Limited
and the Mass Media Trust.

"We created the Mass Media Trust so that media would be in neutral hands and
not business tycoons or the government - that would quash the free voice and
the independence of journalists," Shamuyarira is reported by The Daily News
to have told journalists at a media law meeting in the small mining town of
Kadoma.

He said he tried to further that initiative by appointing trustees who had
no interest in journalism or politics. "The first board of trustees I
appointed had a medical doctor, a town clerk and the like - it was a neutral
board of trustees," he said.

On whether or not the State media had achieved what it was establish for,
Shamuyarira said: "We can say it achieved it in the sense that we operated
for many years in honour and integrity. But the Trust was later taken over
by private interests and it was overwhelmed and it was put on the
defensive."

He said he would say it was successful if the country today had "neutral
papers" which were authoritative in politics, economics, sport and
entertainment and he revealed that at one time the government wanted to take
over The Financial Gazette so that it would be turned into an authoritative
economics journal.

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]