The Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ): Weekly Media Update 2009-47

1. Comment: As this update was being compiled, The Herald (2/12) unwittingly revealed the defects of Article XIX of the Global Political Agreement under which the coalition vaguely undertook to ensure the establishment of “a free and diverse media environment” while at the same time advocating the closure of foreign-based Zimbabwean private radio stations.

It reported Foreign Affairs Secretary Joey Bimha announcing government’s intention to formally complain to Botswana and Madagascar over their “hosting of pirate radio stations beaming hate messages into the country” in “violation of the Global Political Agreement and threatening the survival of the inclusive government”.   

 

But instead of interpreting such plans as yet another grave threat to Zimbabweans’ right to free expression and information emanating from ZANU PF’s hatred of the independent media, which it was now trying to justify on the basis of a flawed agreement, the paper selectively accessed party sympathisers to defend the plans.

 

These included Jonathan Moyo, Maxwell Hove and Masimba Musariri, who all condemned the radio stations as representing a serious threat to the inclusive government and part of an illegal regime-change lobby fronted by the MDC-T.

 

There was no questioning why the ZANU PF arm of government was prioritising the closure of the stations instead of first creating a democratic broadcasting framework that would facilitate their licensing and free operation in Zimbabwe, as the parties pledged in the agreement.  

 

It is this lack of demonstrable evidence of ZANU PF’s commitment to media reforms that expose its plans to seek the closure of the private stations as being driven by its desire to deprive Zimbabweans of alternative sources of information that counters the harmful propaganda by the media it controls, and not the genuine need to comply with the GPA.

 

The ramifications of its autocratic media control were recently illustrated by ZBC’s coverage of Finance Minister Tendai Biti’s national budget statement in Parliament (2/12). While ZTV did provide live coverage of his budget presentation, it buried news of this important event at the end of its business section in its main 8pm bulletin (2/12), preferring to lead with a predictable report on President Mugabe’s statement on World AIDS Day commemorated the previous day. The relegation of this self-evidently newsworthy event so deep into the day’s main bulletin would have constituted an unconscionable crime during the period that Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono was in charge of presenting the national budget.

 

Meanwhile, MMPZ notes with concern current difficulties in accessing The Zimbabwe Times news website, which has since become one of the vital alternative sources of information following the decimation of the mainstream private media. Although the website announced that it was “undergoing security maintenance” between November 16 and November 22, it has been down frequently ever since.

 

While the reasons for this are unclear, the online publication previously warned its readers about “malicious cyber attacks” on its news website by unidentified culprits (21/10).

New Zimbabwe.com also reported a similar attack in the same period. 

 

 

2.The Print Media

 

Summary

Secrecy surrounding the ongoing negotiations to resolve the disputed issues between the parties in government resulted in the country’s political developments playing second fiddle to socio-economic issues in the print media.

 

They published 171 stories on these issues of which 107 (63%) appeared in the government papers and the remaining 64 in the private Press. The papers also carried 36 other stories on party politics and human rights issues.

 

Of the 107 stories the official papers carried on the inclusive government’s activities (see the first two columns of Fig.1), 55 highlighted problems affecting its effectiveness while 52 presented the coalition as making progress in reviving the country’s economy.

 

Forty-two (66%) of the private papers’ stories on political developments and socio-economic issues reported government’s operations as constrained by the bickering over the partial fulfilment of the political agreement. The remaining 22 highlighted the coalition’s measured achievements, which were more visible in the socio-economic sectors.  

 

Fig 1: Topical news distribution in the print media

Publication	Political developments in government	Socio-economic issues	Party politics	Human rights issues
The Herald	18	46	5	0
Chronicle	12	18	10	1
The Manica Post	1	4	0	0
The Sunday Mail	3	5	1	0
The Financial Gazette	8	2	0	0
The Zimbabwean	8	12	2	6
Zimbabwe Independent	5	4	1	0
The Standard	5	2	1	1
Zimbabwean On Sunday	6	12	1	7
Total	66	105	21	15

 

 

Political threats to the coalition

The official papers capitalised on the information blackout the coalition imposed on its negotiations, which allowed them to cover the subject superficially.

 

They simply restricted themselves to the parties’ statements confirming their ongoing meetings without analysing their likelihood of resolving their differences within the stipulated SADC timeframe or reconciling the parties’ attempts to downplay the matter with the planned dispatching of a new facilitation team to Zimbabwe by South African President Jacob Zuma.

 

The Herald (26/11), for instance, passively reported MDC-T spokesman Nelson Chamisa expressing optimism that the parties would “beat the time frame that we were advised by our guarantors” while rehashing an SA government statement announcing the appointment of the new facilitation team and its plans to “soon engage with the parties as emissaries of (Zuma)”.

 

There was no attempt to analyse the implication of this development on the talks.   

 

Instead, the papers carried six opinion pieces that still tried to discredit the MDC-T’s concerns as groundless attempts to sabotage the coalition despite SADC’s acknowledgement of the party’s position in Maputo. The Herald’s columnist Mukanya Makwira (25/11) epitomised their slant.

 

He described as “flimsy” the MDC-T’s complaints about the government media’s continued abusive and inflammatory attacks against the party and its leadership, saying instead, the party’s alleged parallel government structures, Western sanctions and ‘pirate’ radio stations were the “biggest threats” to the coalition’s survival.

 

Although the private papers also failed to break through the wall of secrecy around the talks, they revealed that the parties had agreed on a 20-item agenda and deferred discussions on the controversial appointments of central bank governor Gideon Gono and the Attorney General Johannes Tomana until they had addressed the other outstanding issues. They also viewed the appointment of a new facilitation team and its visit to Zimbabwe as indicative of Zuma’s determination to resolve the crisis plaguing government and save it from collapse.

 

In addition, they reported the constitutional reform exercise as running behind schedule owing mostly to ZANU PF’s intransigence and intolerance as reflected by its plans to have outreach programmes deferred to January to accommodate its congress and the barring of civic organisations’ constitutional campaign programmes by its activists and the police (The Financial Gazette and The Standard, 26 & 29/11).   

 

Economic threats

All the papers identified relentless socio-economic problems as setbacks to the coalition’s economic renewal. They included:

• Chaos in the education sector;
• Failure by some civil servants to access bonuses from banks due to cash shortages;
• Friction between Finance Minister Tendai Biti and Gono; and
• A fresh cholera outbreak in Mabvuku.

 

Coalition successes

The official papers continued to portray the inclusive government as making significant strides in revitalising the country’s struggling socio-economic sectors despite the crippling effects of the prolonged dispute over the implementation of the political agreement.

 

They cited as proof:

• The signing of the Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (BIPPA) between Zimbabwe and SA;
• Increased industrial productivity; and
• The provision of US$180 million by the Global Fund to fight HIV and AIDS.

 

It was against these papers’ attempts to project the coalition as a success, that The Herald (25/11) falsely reported that British Airways (BA) would resume its London-Harare flight next year after it suspended this service two years ago citing a sharp decline in demand triggered by the country’s political instability. Despite BA’s reported denial of such plans (FlightMapping.com 30/11), the paper did not correct its initial story.

 

Although the private papers also reported on the signing of the BIPPA pact with South Africa, they – like the government Press – failed to link a South African High Court ruling upholding the SADC Tribunal’s judgment on Zimbabwe’s land seizures with Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa’s previous claims that the protocol establishing the regional court was yet to be ratified and therefore its rulings were not binding.   

 

Human rights issues

This week the government papers featured one story on human rights issues, although they did not present it as such. It involved the harassment of Face of Africa journalists by the police in Bulawayo (Chronicle, 29/11).

 

In contrast, the private press reported on this news, analysing the effect of continued rights abuses on government stability and effectiveness. They carried 14 stories on human rights issues, three of which included new abuses. These comprised:

• The invasion of white-owned farms in Mutare and Chegutu by ZANU PF acolyte Tafataona Mahoso and another party official (The Zimbabwean On Sunday, 29/11);
• Violent clashes among PF ZAPU supporters in Bulawayo (The Zimbabwean, 29/11)

 

 

3.The Electronic Media

 

Summary

There was also little useful information on the progress of the parties’ secretive negotiations in the electronic media, which carried more reports on the country’s socio-economic issues than other related political developments.  

 

Altogether, they carried 107 stories on these broad issues, 66 (62%) of which appeared on ZBC and the remaining 41 in the private electronic media [radios (23) and online agencies (18)]. 

 

Fifty-two (72%) of ZBC’s stories depicted government’s reform agenda as bearing fruit, while the remaining 14 highlighted obstacles to its economic reconstruction drive, which were mostly attributed to alleged Western economic sanctions.

 

The private electronic media chronicled problems affecting the alliance’s viability in 17 stories and noted its tentative gains in 15 reports.

 

Fig 2: Topical stories in the electronic media

Station	Political developments	Socio-economic issues	Human rights issues
ZTV	10	36	0
Spot FM	1	5	1
Radio Zimbabwe	7	6	0
Studio 7	10	2	2
SW Radio Africa	5	1	3
New Zimbabwe.com	4	1	0
ZimOnline	4	7	1
Zimdaily	1	0	0
Total	42	58	7

 

 

Political threats to the coalition

Like its print counterparts, ZBC appeared content with rehashing the parties’ statements on their negotiations and not concerned about the secrecy of the talks; their likely chances of success and the implications of South African President Jacob Zuma’s appointment of a new facilitation team.

 

Consequently, ZTV (25/11, 8pm) did not reconcile Zuma’s plans to his facilitation team to “assist the negotiating teams”, if the talks were “going on well” as all three parties’ representatives claimed (ZTV, 24,25 & 29/11, 8pm).

 

Although the private electronic media also failed to provide insightful exposure on the content of the negotiations, they attributed this to a tight information lid imposed on the media by the parties, which they condemned as a violation of Zimbabweans’ right to access information on events affecting their livelihoods.

 

They also highlighted South Africa’s displeasure with the progress of the talks and provided an insight on some coalition members’ attitudes towards the SADC timeline.      

 

Studio 7 (24/11), for example, quoted SA President Jacob Zuma’s advisor Lindiwe Zulu expressing her boss’ concerns over the pace of the talks, which “have been dragging for too long” while SW Radio Africa (27/11) quoted MDC-M negotiator Welshman Ncube denying the existence of a SADC deadline.

 

Said Ncube “That is a creation of those who grandstand and who are masters of deception. There was never a SADC deadline. Those who want to believe there was, is their problem not mine. SADC only provided a framework.”

 

Economic threats

The electronic media also identified ongoing socio-economic problems as impediments to the inclusive government’s economic revival.

 

These included:

• Chaos in the education sector over the invigilation of school examinations;

• Poor service delivery;
• Cholera outbreak in Mabvuku and
• The signing of the BIPPA agreement between Zimbabwe and South Africa

 

However, while ZBC simply praised the signing of the BIPPA as a positive development, the private electronic media exposed the South African farmers’ displeasure over the agreement, which they felt excluded those that have already lost their properties under Zimbabwe’s chaotic land reforms. They also reported on their High Court intervention in South Africa, which they had hoped would stop the agreement.

 

 

Successes of the coalition

ZBC continued to downplay the effects of the political crisis by depicting the inclusive government as making tremendous progress in rebuilding the country.

 

They cited as proof:

• The resumption of the constitution-making process;

• Outreach programmes by the national reconciliation team;

• Alleged plans by the Commonwealth to re-admit Zimbabwe;

• The signing of the Bilateral Investment Protection Agreement (BIPPA) between Zimbabwe and South Africa;

• Increase in investment and industrial productivity

 

The private electronic media also recorded these measured gains but did not consider them sufficient signs of political and socio-economic progress. For example, they noted that the constitutional review process was running behind schedule; observed that continued rights violations were undermining the national reconciliation programme, and contended that Zimbabwe’s re-admission to the Commonwealth was subject to full compliance with democratic standards.

 

Human rights issues

ZBC carried one story on human rights issues.

It stemmed from a court case in which a Chiredzi magistrate upheld the eviction of white farmer Digby Nesbitt from his property by senior police official Edmore Veterai (Spot FM, 23/11, 1pm).

The private electronic media recorded six stories on the subject, one of which was an incident stemming the invasion of another white-owned farm in Chegutu by suspected ZANU PF supporters.

 

Ends/

The MEDIA UPDATE was produced and circulated by the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe, 9 Knight Bruce Road, Milton Park, Harare, Tel: 263 4 741816 / 778115, E-mail: monitors@mmpz.org.zw

 

Feel free to write to MMPZ. We may not able to respond to everything but we will look at each message.  For previous MMPZ reports, and more information about the Project, please visit our website at www.mmpz.org

 

- December 4, 2009 by MMPZ Monday November 23^rd – Sunday November 29^th 2009

.................

Source: www.mmpz.org (received via email 04.12.2009)