Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe
Monday June 30th – Sunday July 6th 2003
Weekly update 2003-26

CONTENTS

1. GENERAL COMMENT
2. MEDIA OVERWHELMED BY CRISIS
3. BUSH SAFARI ENRAGES GOVT MEDIA

1. General comment

MMPZ notes with concern the manner in which journalists controlling Zimbabwe’s media have apparently normalized the grinding socio-economic hardships in the country to the extent that they no longer consider these stories of great news value. As a result, investigative news about the real effects of inflation on the public; transport problems; the alarming collapse of the health delivery system; and rampant corruption in all sectors of Zimbabwean society have either been given scant attention or ignored altogether.
For example, besides The Financial Gazette and The Daily News (3/7) no other media reported that 43 people had died in Bulawayo between April and May this year because of malnutrition. Even then, the two papers merely reported the Bulawayo City Council’s health report revealing this disturbing piece of news and to make matters worse treated it as a minor incident on their inside pages. If this sort of thing is happening in Zimbabwe’s second city, what is happening in the rest of the country – and even in the capital itself? Why have we not heard about the hard facts of starvation nationwide? What is the real inflation rate for the average family? And why has the media made no apparent effort to seek, independently, these indices of decline and collapse? Where is the human perspective of the crisis afflicting this country? In such a tragic economic and social climate, it is extraordinary that the media wait for official statements on such calamities as deaths from starvation; in this case mostly children. It seems the details will not emerge regarding the scale of suffering by the Zimbabwean nation unless it is delivered into the hands of the media – the private Press included.

The media’s preoccupation with political stories at the expense of investigative reports on the socio-economic crisis during the week under review was well illustrated by the placement by The Daily News of a speculative political feature article, Is Mbeki buying time for Mugabe’s embattled regime? on its prime news page, page three, while the hard news story of starvation in Binga was buried on page seven.

But if the Press’ coverage of the socio-economic crises afflicting Zimbabweans was questionable, ZBC’s reporting of these issues was deplorable. Its coverage demonstrated a woeful failure to fulfill its duty of providing news, giving incisive commentary and analysis of the extent in the decline of the living standards of the public. For example, amidst fuel, cash and commodity shortages in an environment characterized by hyperinflation officially pegged at over 300 percent, ZTV preferred allocating one hour 34 minutes and 50 seconds or 44 percent of the total time (excluding business, weather and sport segments) allocated to its 8pm main news bulletins to the national soccer team’s campaign for a slot in the Africa Cup of Nations tournament scheduled for Tunisia next year. In addition, ZTV’s 30-minute long Behind the Camera and its one-hour long Face the nation programmes were devoted to soccer. A song composed by Information Minister Jonathan Moyo for the team was also allocated time within ZTV’s 8pm bulletins before and a day after the match. In fact, the song, Go Warriors, was incessantly played on all ZBC stations, and even eclipsed the saturation airing of the government’s land reform programme jingle, Rambai Makashinga.
While some newspapers described this as putting politics aside to follow something the public could cheer about, MMPZ would say this government-led campaign for the national football team was more a case of politicians interfering in the sports arena in order to distract the public from the hardships inflicted by a government bereft of ideas about restoring the economic prosperity of the country.

2. Crisis overwhelms media

THE media’s obsession with political rivalry between ZANU-PF and the MDC appears to have resulted in other fundamental issues, such as the country’s deteriorating socio-economic crisis receiving superficial attention. Nowhere was this more evident than in coverage of the current transport problems and cash shortages. The private media were the main culprits. For example, they lacked clear information on how the recently introduced fuel coupon system for commuter transport, ostensibly to stop leakages of fuel to the black market, would be implemented. Neither did they discuss the practicability of such a move by government.

Although the government-controlled media faired better, with regard to information on where to access the coupons and the necessary documents required for one to get coupons (The Herald and ZTV 2/7, 7am), they generally reported the socio-economic problems in isolation of the country’s general economic collapse, and indeed, how Zimbabweans are coping with it. For example, ZTV (1/07, 7am) merely announced that the Rural Passenger Transport Organization had hiked its fares for “rural and long distance” journeys “by at least 33% with effect from today” due to viability problems. ZTV provided no analysis of the effects of the fare increases on the public nor explain whether such a move would help alleviate transport shortages. Instead, the station (2/07, 6pm) trivialized the commuter transport problem and presented it as if it was an issue confined to three Harare suburbs. It reported that residents of Budiriro, Glen View and Mufakose had called on government “to introduce a weekend commuter train service to ease transport problems being experienced in the areas”. Although the report noted that the transport situation had worsened “due to the continued fuel shortage” and that some operators had been “forced to withdraw vehicles from the roads after failing to secure foreign currency to import spare parts”, ZBC failed to go beyond such simplistic statements to explain the gravity of the situation in the country in general.
The Herald (2/7 & 3/7) however, gave a different explanation to the transport blues. It pointed out that most commuter transport operators had pulled out because about three-quarters of them did not have the requisite papers needed to acquire fuel coupons.
The Daily News (3/7) put the figure at 60 percent but attributed the reduction in the number of commuter transport vehicles to high operational costs and exorbitant fuel prices on the black market. It further reported that the few operators who remained on the road had taken advantage of the situation and had increased their fares by 150 percent in Harare and Bulawayo. The Herald (3/7) concurred saying commuter fares had been increased to between $500 and $1000.
However, both papers failed to translate their percentages of vehicles now out of commission in actual figures. Nor has any section of the media attempted to establish how commuter operators arrive at the fares they set and compare them with an independent assessment of running costs.
The Manica Post (4/7) revealed that the problem was not only confined to the two major cities but – not surprisingly – to Mutare as well. It reported that a new fuel arrangement where buses are required to queue for fuel at designated service stations during peak hours had left commuters stranded in that city. Reportedly, the problem was compounded by a blitz on the omnibuses by the Vehicle Inspection Department (VID), which was impounding and penalizing “unroadworthy” vehicles. The paper noted that 75 percent of public vehicles in Mutare do not have certificates of fitness or route permits. Like the two dailies, the paper did not explain what 75 percent represented in figures.

Despite their tenacity in pin-pointing some of the causes of the transport crisis, the government-controlled media in general, failed to question government’s stop-gap measures to solve the fuel shortages and the resultant transport crisis. Rather, The Herald (3/7) tried to blame the multinational oil companies for the fuel shortage, saying they had yet to import fuel in response to government’s deregulation of the fuel procurement sector. Also, the paper (2/7) attempted to give Zimbabweans some false sense of hope saying fuel supplies would resume in the “near future following the reviving of a trade deal between Zimbabwe and Libya,” without clarifying when exactly supplies would arrive and how long they would last. This sense of hope evaporated when The Daily News (6/7) revealed that President Robert Mugabe had only managed to secure US$30 million worth of fuel from Libya, an amount that would last the country a mere three weeks.

The long fuel queues were by no means the only queues that dotted the country as Zimbabwe’s fast dwindling workforce continued to struggle at the banks to convert a portion of the salaries into cash. All the media reported the issue and for once agreed that the Reserve Bank’s decision to print $4billion dollars worth of bank notes was not the solution. The Chronicle and The Herald (1/7) observed that although the injection was welcome, they urged the central bank to guarantee a steady money supply by printing more notes of higher denominations. However, they remained blind to the underlying implications of such a move on the country’s inflation.
Studio 7 (30/06) quoted economic analyst, Tony Hawkins, as saying more efforts were needed to alleviate the shortages and “not just printing bank notes” adding that the move, among other issues, would fuel inflation to “500% by December”. Similarly, The Financial Gazette (3/7) columnist, Witness Chinyama, pointed out that Zimbabwe was already at the “stagflation” stage and warned that the cash injections without other measures to resuscitate the economy would only fan inflation. The Sunday News (6/7) made similar observations and called on the central bank to “tackle inflation first…to satisfy the demand for cash”.

3. Bush safari enrages government media

Regional and international efforts to resolve Zimbabwe’s worsening economic and political crises assumed greater prominence in the media as the scheduled visit to Africa by US President George Bush, particularly to South Africa, drew closer. In a typical replay of the previous week, the government-controlled media dismissed the trip as insignificant and narrowly interpreted the US’s calls for the restoration of democracy and the formation of a transitional government in Zimbabwe to mean that Bush’s visit was a neo-colonial expedition to oust President Mugabe from power.
The private media was less emotional in their coverage. Although they welcomed and apparently celebrated Bush’s stance on Zimbabwe, they also tried to analyze whether he would be able to successfully sell his approach to his South African counterpart Thabo Mbeki.

At the beginning of the week, ZBC (1/07,8pm) reported that, “Some of Zimbabwe’s neighbours have refused to be used as launch pads for the US and Britain’s plans to effect regime change in Zimbabwe”. Zambia and Botswana were named as the two neighbours that had refused to cooperate with the US but there was no official comment from the two countries. In the same report, the government-controlled broadcaster echoed Mugabe’s earlier unsubstantiated allegations that the US and Britain had helped to fund the MDC mass stayaways and that they were lobbying “Zimbabwe’s neighbours, especially South Africa, SADC member states and the African continent … to isolate Zimbabwe on the international scene and put pressure on the government for the removal of President Robert Mugabe …”.
This myopic view of Bush’s visit resulted in the government-controlled media delivering vitriolic and racist attacks against the US leadership. The Herald (1 & 2/7) is a case in point. The paper carried two opinion pieces attacking the US State Secretary, Colin Powell, for his call to restore democracy in Zimbabwe with fresh internationally supervised elections via a transitional government. In its article on July 2nd, the paper castigated Powell for allegedly having “chosen money and conservative political thinking over his black history” and wanting Zimbabweans to do the same. The paper’s relentless racial slurs were also repeated in its article (5/7), Zimbabwe does not need a transitional government. Not to be outdone, The Sunday Mail’s Munyaradzi Huni (6/7) described Bush as a “Texan gunslinger” who “stole” the American presidential election, and accused him of “dangling the carrot in billions of American dollars to buy out the African leaders so that they can allow him to spread his stinking imperialistic wings”. Huni then observed - without a shred of evidence - that Bush had cancelled his trip early this year and rescheduled it so that it coincided with the African Union summit in Mozambique in order “to whip them (African leaders) into line using one stick.”

Besides introducing a racist angle to Bush’s trip, the government-controlled media tried to downplay the significance of his visit following Mugabe’s address during the 54th Session of the ZANU-PF Central Committee. ZBC (3/07, 8pm) quoted him as saying, “When Bush visits here, it shouldn’t send tremors to your spines [because] Africa is united with us in opposing them”. There was no effort to investigate why Mugabe had to calm the nerves of his colleagues if Bush’s visit was indeed a non-event. Neither did The Herald or Chronicle (4/7) explore this in their report of the same event. As if taking a cue from Mugabe’s speech, The Sunday News (6/7), Bush’s Africa tour bound to fail - analysts, quoted government-controlled media’s favourite analysts dismissing Bush’s tour.

The private media avoided personal attacks on either government or US authorities and instead examined the US and South African approaches to the Zimbabwean crisis. For example, while The Standard (6/7) comment, Bush visit: What’s in it for Zimbabwe?, agreed with the Bush Administration that Zimbabwe needed a return to democracy but was opposed to the US calls for ‘regime change’ wherever it desired. “Our advice to the US is that acting in this high-handed manner can only alienate people and needlessly lose the goodwill of its friends in Africa. Powell’s dramatic language ran the risk of being interpreted as war-mongering and parallels being drawn with the Iraq war,” it stated. The Daily News (3/7) pointed out that despite the US’s call to Thabo Mbeki to take a more proactive role on Zimbabwe, the South African President was unlikely to change his approach. It quoted Mbeki as saying, “It’s incorrect really to be saying that we should stand outside the borders of Zimbabwe and decide what the Zimbabweans should do about their own country.”

In fact, ZBC (3/07, 7am) conveniently used Mbeki’s statements to buttress the impression that Mbeki and African leaders were behind Zimbabwe. However, while ZBC viewed Mbeki’s comments as a positive development, The Daily News (4/7) did not. In its article, Is Mbeki buying time for Mugabe’s embattled regime? the paper charged that Mbeki had become an obstacle in efforts to force Mugabe to relinquish power. MDC secretary-general Welshman Ncube also criticized South Africa’s stance on Zimbabwe saying it reflected that country’s diplomatic immaturity, Sunday Mirror (6/7).

While the government-controlled media generally gave the impression that South Africa would not relent in its apparently sympathetic stance on Zimbabwe, The Daily News (1/7) and Studio 7 (2/7) revealed that it was willing to discuss with the US and reach common ground on how to deal with Zimbabwe. They both quoted a South African official, Aziz Pahad, as having said South Africa wanted more clarity on American plans to bankroll the economic revival of Zimbabwe once Mugabe stepped down.

Meanwhile, Studio 7 (2/7), The Zimbabwe Independent (4/7), The Standard (6/7), The Daily News on Sunday (6/7) and Sunday Mirror (6/7) reported that the MDC would send delegations to South Africa and Mozambique to lobby Bush and African leaders respectively, to pressure ZANU PF to engage the opposition in dialogue. The government-controlled media ignored the news, although that did not stop the Sunday News (6/7) maligning the MDC as “stooges” and “puppets of imperialism,” for wanting to meet Bush.
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]; [email protected]

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