Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe

Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe
Media Update # 2001/44
October 29th – November 5th 2001

CONTENTS
1. SUMMARY
2. THE NATIONAL BUDGET: state media suppresses crucial
information
3. CITIZENSHIP & VOTER REGISTRATION
4. US COURT RULING
5. OBJECTIVITY: MMPZ “disappointing”? From a subscriber

1. SUMMARY

o The week provided ample evidence that the recent changes
and restructuring in the government-controlled media
engineered by the Ministry of Information are now paying
dividends. The two main media institutions, Zimbabwe
Newspapers and ZBC, have now become dedicated,
professional and efficient propaganda machines for the
government, manipulating the news in favour of the ruling
party at the expense of the truth. There can no longer be
any question that the constant stream of coordinated
misinformation being disseminated by these two
organizations is a grave and extreme abuse of journalistic
standards. And in the case of the national broadcaster,
which still enjoys a de facto monopoly of the airwaves, its
distortion of the news is an insult to its mandate to provide
the public with diverse, fair and accurate information of
national issues and amounts to a serious contravention of
Zimbabweans’ constitutional right to fair and accurate
information.

o In the days before the announcement of the national
budget, ZBC and Zimpapers created the impression that
Zimbabweans were expecting a “people’s budget”, one
that held down prices and put money back into people’s
pockets. When it was delivered, allocations to Health,
Social Services and Agriculture were highlighted by
Finance Minister Simba Makoni, which allowed the
government-controlled media to confirm that Makoni had,
indeed, produced a people’s budget. What was ignored,
despite Makoni’s warning, were the effects hyper-inflation
would have on the increased allocations, the huge budget
deficit, and his failure to address the macro-economic
issues creating the economic crisis which he himself
identified.

o The state media also ignored the unprecedented failure of
the budget presentation to disclose a number of vote
allocations, including those for the President’s Office, and
the Ministries of Defence and Foreign Affairs. They also
overlooked the limited availability of the budget documents
for the Press, which, together with the lack of transparency
in the budget presentation itself, amounted to an attempt
to manipulate news of the budget’s contents in a way that
would allow only the “good news” to be highlighted. Most of
the media also missed the fact that in his introduction,
Minister Makoni provided the most frank – and gloomy –
assessment of the country’s economic performance and
forecast for the budgetary year ever given by a government
official.
The state media took no account of this and provided no
sensible analysis beyond statements and comments
supporting the measures designed to ease the financial
pressures on the public, which were discussed in isolation.

o During the week, the state media also distorted news of
the US court ruling against ZANU PF and President
Mugabe so badly that fact could not be separated from
fiction.

o It also obscured the issues involved in the on-going voters’
registration exercise and failed to provide any useful
information for the electorate about its conduct, a fault
shared by the private Press. And none of the media have
explored the purpose and potential of the “single-
nationality” Citizenship Act.

2. THE NATIONAL BUDGET: State media suppresses crucial
information

Before the budget ZBC created the concept of a ‘people’s budget’
during its interviews with people on the street and was able to
continue with this theme after its presentation by airing more street
interviews with only those people who thought they would benefit
thanks, in part, to a lack of transparency in Makoni’s presentation.
The state broadcaster quietly ignored Makoni’s surprisingly honest
but gloomy assessment of the economic crisis facing the country
and his failure to offer any solutions, highlighting, instead, the extra
allocations to the few ministries for which Makoni provided detail.

In its Newshour bulletin (1/11, 8pm) ZBCTV merely announced in a
15-second news item that Makoni had presented the budget with
snippets of detail from the presentation only emerging after item
nine out of 17 monitored news items. In the same bulletin ZBCTV
conducted a countrywide round-up of public opinion from its
regional reporters all welcoming the budget without a single quote
from anybody. Bank boss Gideon Gono was also invited onto the
news desk to comment. Representing expert opinion, Gono
praised Makoni, saying: “…The minister needs to be
commended for a job extremely well done. I say so against a
background where the nation entrusted him to spend $224
billion. It’s expected that he will spend about $185billion…The
budget deficit was supposed to be 50% but it’s 12% therefore
on that basis, it’s a job well done.” He added that Minister
Makoni would under-spend by $40 billion.
But his comments were thoroughly confusing because it was not
made clear that Gono was referring to Makoni’s observations
regarding government’s expected savings from the 2001 budget,
while Makoni had clearly stated that he intended to collect $251.9
billion and spend $390.2 billion, thus creating a deficit of about
$138. 3 billion (for the 2002 budget)
ZBCTV failed to question Gono about the effects on the economy
of the extra spending contained in the 2002 budget when he
brushed it aside by saying: “…In turnarounds it is necessary
sometimes to spend more in order to revitalize the economy.
That’s precisely what he is doing and I fully endorse that kind
of strategy”.
All radio stations carried the report the following morning (2/11,
6am).
Immediately after the budget ZTV (1/11, 4.45pm) sourced
comments from five ZANU PF legislators who all praised Makoni.
However, Deputy Health Minister, David Parirenyatwa, was also
quoted saying that the $22billion allocated to his ministry was not
enough. All radio (1/11, 8pm) quoted him providing a more detailed
explanation why his ministry needed more.
But this did not deter ZBC (2 & 3/11), which sent its reporters out
to seek comment from ordinary people who celebrated the amount
allocated to Health. The broadcaster made no attempt to inform the
public of the fact that the value of $22billion in 2002 would be little
different from this year’s paltry $12 billion after inflation had taken
its toll.
Although the ZBC aired a post-budget analysis programme
(ZBCTV, 1/11, 4:45 pm) the government-controlled broadcaster
restricted scrutiny to Makoni’s statement and failed to provide
informative independent analysis, even with the help of
commentators Ibbo Mandaza and Dr Samuel Undenge, and the
businessman and banker, Enock Kamushinda, who, in an earlier
programme, had urged ZTV’s audiences not to focus on
government expenditure but on how it generated funds (31/10,
7.15pm).

In its subsequent reports (2/11 and 3/11), ZBC swamped its
audiences with comments of praise from street interviews and
government apologists without providing any informative analysis
(ZTV quoted 23 voices, while radio quoted nine). While those
accessed would only have had a limited understanding of what the
budget was about, the interviews helped to portray the impression
that Makoni had indeed produced a ‘people’s budget’. The
emphasis of any analysis focused narrowly on the health and
agriculture votes. Issues such as the overall performance of the
economy, the huge budget deficit, and his admission that hyper-
inflation would continue next year, were suppressed in the state
media.

ZBC’s bias in support of ZANU PF also manifested itself in other
ways. Before the budget, ZTV quoted six ZANU PF MPs as
against three from the MDC. But afterwards, it quoted ruling party
sources six times without accessing a single comment from the
opposition. On Radio 1/3 eleven (11) voices were accessed from
ZANU PF MPs, while the opposition was not quoted at all. Radio
2/4 quoted six (6) ZANU PF voices and one from the MDC.
However, the MDC MP was only quoted before the budget
presentation. It was unprofessional for ZBC to quote MDC MPs on
their expectations of the budget and then ignore them after the
presentation.

Only The Zimbabwe Independent (2/11) noted that there were non-
disclosures in the allocations to the Ministries of Defence, the
President’s Office (which includes the CIO), Foreign Affairs, and
the Vote of Credit, among others.
In its article “Non-disclosures dog budget”, The Zimbabwe
Independent criticized Makoni for being vague with regard to macro-
economic issues, especially the interest and exchange rate
regimes.
The absence of explicit reference to the amount of money allocated
to Defence, which has dominated past national budgets, received
no attention from ZBC or Zimpapers, which both failed to question
the lack of transparency in the budgetary process. Although The
Herald carried details of these votes in a special four-page
supplement that also contained Makoni’s entire parliamentary
statement, the details were tucked away in a table without a story
to explain why some of the allocations had nearly doubled.
The Daily News story, Defence gobbles up $34 billion (3/11)
corroborated the Independent by noting that “budget estimates
were only made available to the state media, with the rest of
the journalists being told to collect their copies from
Parliament yesterday (Friday) morning”.
The paper even quoted Makoni as saying the government printers
had problems, resulting in only five copies being printed on the day
he presented his budget. However, it failed to take this up with the
government printers.
Like ZBC, Zimpapers roundly hailed the budget as being “people-
oriented”. Part of The Herald’s front-page lead story read:
Described as people-oriented, the budget aims to
give more disposable income to the workers and
breathe life into public sector investment
programmes”.

And in its comment The Herald used the higher spending on social
services to reinforce President Mugabe’s recent declaration that
government was again embracing socialist policies without
mentioning that even by Makoni’s accounting, inflation would wipe
out the gains: “The budget clearly vindicates the President’s
statement that ESAP is no more as the Government has now
given priority to issues of health, social services, education,
capital development projects, land reform and empowerment,
among others.”
The Herald’s uncritical praise reappeared in The Sunday Mail’s
editorial (4/11): “So terms like a populist budget or gloomy
budget have been used to describe what in reality is a
confirmation of the decision by Government to return to basics
or its original plan of putting the people first”.
In contrast, The Zimbabwe Independent (2/11), The Zimbabwe
Mirror (2/11), and The Standard (4/11) all ran stories dismissing the
budget as a political gimmick meant to woo restless voters ahead
of the 2002 Presidential Election.
Perhaps because of its early deadlines, The Daily News report on
the budget (2/11) merely focused on Makoni’s gloomy assessment
of the economy’s performance and only provided inadequate one-
sentence highlights of vote allocations in a panel of its main story.
The Independent however, made a great effort to provide its readers
with a breakdown of the budget’s main points, including comment
and analysis. It featured a 16-page supplement containing 18
budget-related stories to back up its front-page news story that
noted the budget was “…silent on a programme for economic
recovery”.
The Zimbabwe Mirror carried two articles that were both critical.
The newspaper quoted analysts who, like those reported in The
Independent, “… described the 2002 budget as ‘populist’ -
tailored to hoodwink the electorate ahead of the presidential
elections scheduled for next year”. The two papers also quoted
the MDC dismissing Makoni’s work as a “no solution budget.”
The following day, The Daily News (3/11) began to catch up
with “reaction” articles that were also critical of the budget,
while The Standard’s “Budget 2002: much ado about
nothing” echoed sentiments in the rest of the private press.
The story quoted economic analysts dismissing the budget
“… as a mere ‘election budget’ which fails to address the
economic problems facing the country”

3. CITIZENSHIP AND VOTER REGISTRATION

There was little information in the media regarding the on-going
mobile voter registration exercise in preparation for Zimbabwe’s
presidential poll, announced to have started on October 15 and due
to end on December 13. Nor has there been a thorough
examination of the Citizenship Act, a controversial piece of
legislation passed into law in July and widely interpreted as being
aimed at disfranchising a large section of Zimbabweans.
ZTV and Radio 2/4 (31/10, 8pm) reported that mobile registration
was in progress. Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede was quoted
on ZTV stating that voter registration was going on smoothly.
However, the two reports were confusing in that the news reader
stated that both “mobile registration and inspection of the
voters’ roll were currently in progress” when on ZTV Mudede
said, “at the moment we are having a mobile registration
going on…Around the 12th we will be having an inspection…”
No effort was made to clarify the confusion caused by the
conflicting statements. Furthermore, the news item was buried
deep in the running order of the bulletins.

The Herald (1/11) also carried the story the next day, reporting
that, “preparations for next year’s presidential election begin
this month with the inspection of the voters’ roll running from
November 12 until December 2”. The article at least clarified the
TV report but concentrated on a political agenda rather than its
educational value to voters. Thus it quoted Mudede dismissing the
MDC’s call for an independent Electoral Commission. Side
reference was also made to government’s rejection of the European
Union and the Commonwealth requests to send observers to
monitor the election because this was a ploy to oust the
government “…in the manner Western powers schemed the
defeat of former Yugoslav leader, Slobodan Milosevic”.
The private press also restricted its coverage to voter registration.
But the stories merely scratched the surface, badly exposing the
media’s over-reliance on civic organizations or political parties to
expose weaknesses in the electoral processes for them.
A typical example was The Daily News story (3/11), Voter
registration exercise tipped in ZANU PF’s favour – Ncube, in which
the paper was content to record MDC secretary general Welshman
Ncube’s claims that “his party has detected a number of
irregularities in the current voter registration exercise which he
believes were designed to sway votes in ZANU PF’s favour in
next year’s presidential election”.
Although Ncube identified the irregularities in the story, the paper
failed to follow this up with comment from the Registrar-General’s
office.
Neither did it investigate queries made in parliament by ZANU PF
and MDC MPs about the efficiency of officers in the RG’s office
involved with voter registration. And Chief Charumbira’s question
about why “…the RG’s office only advertised (voter registration)
in the State-controlled Herald newspaper...” (The Daily News
3/11), also went uninvestigated.
The press-release journalism also manifested itself in coverage of
the threats by civic society groups calling for a nationwide
programme of civil disobedience if government failed to embrace
conditions that facilitate the holding of a free and fair presidential
election.
None of the media - The Financial Gazette (1/11), The Daily News
(1/11) and The Zimbabwe Mirror (2/11) – went beyond the
communiqué issued by 150 non-governmental organizations. They
did not relate the communiqué’s demands, such as the call for “a
more intensive voter education programme” in the rural areas,
to their proper relevance in relation to the voter registration exercise
and how it is being conducted.
Civic organisations in voter registration drive, an IRIN story carried
in The Zimbabwe Independent (2/9) also eloquently recorded civic
society’s discomfort with the on-going “compilation of the voters’
roll…without any genuine public input”, but failed to take the
RG’s office to task over this.
For example, as the voter registration exercise nears the halfway
mark, the public remains no wiser as to the number of mobile
registration centres in their areas and where they are operating,
their operating times, and what documents are required to register.
And although the private Press has covered the implications of the
Citizenship Act at some length, they still have to make it topical
and correlate it with the current voter registration exercise.
It would be interesting, for example, to know the number of voters
who are likely to be disenfranchised by the Citizenship Act and
relate it to Zimbabwe’s total potential voting public. In fact, is the
AG’s office already drawing up a master record that lists all such
Zimbabweans? And as voter registration unfolds, are registration
officers explaining to the public, especially in farming areas, the
implications of this Act?
The MMPZ strongly believes it is time the media seriously makes
the RG’s office their concern and penetrates the layers of secrecy
that have accumulated there for years.

4. THE US COURT RULING

The government-controlled media resorted to propagandist bluster
to obscure the outcome of a landmark US court ruling in favour of
the families of four MDC activists who are seeking to sue President
Mugabe, ZANU PF and ministers Stan Mudenge and Jonathan
Moyo for unleashing violence against the opposition in last year’s
parliamentary election.
In its efforts to drown the essence of the ruling, The Herald (2/11)
ran a story under the misleading headline, President immune to
prosecution, US judge rules, which accused the American judicial
system of being part of a Western conspiracy involving the MDC,
“…determined to rubbish Zimbabwe, ZANU PF, President
Mugabe, the government and its leadership”.
The paper tried to underline President Mugabe’s immunity to
prosecution at the expense of the court’s damning findings that
ZANU PF was responsible for the systematic persecution,
including murder and torture, of its political opponents in last year’s
parliamentary election campaign.
The Herald further undermined whatever credibility it may still have
possessed when it sought to dismiss the ruling out-of-hand by
quoting Zimbabwe’s ambassador to the United Nations in New
York, Tichaona Jokonya, who said it “…was not a legal case but
a political issue being orchestrated by the powers that support
the MDC.”
The paper tried to divert public attention from the ruling by omitting
it entirely on the grounds that it “was…not immediately
available…” and focusing on Jokonya’s waffle dismissing “…the
assertion in the judgment that President Mugabe could be
sued in his capacity as the First Secretary of ZANU PF.”
Here was a clue as to what the ruling was about, but because the
story was so distorted by Jokonya’s comments, it was impossible
to establish a single fact.
ZBC merely carried the interview with Jokonya (ZTV, 2/11, 7am &
8pm and all radio stations 6am).
There did not seem to be such confusion in the coverage of the
same issue by the private press.
In contrast, the private media restricted its coverage to informing its
readers of the ruling, its meaning and the context in which it was
made.
The Daily News (2/11), Judge warns Mugabe, and The Zimbabwe
Independent’s story the same day, Mugabe’s days of immunity are
numbered – US Court, simply spelt out to readers that Mugabe
and his party had been found liable for the crimes of murder and
torture, although Mugabe himself was personally immune to
prosecution as head of state.
However, the papers pointed out that he was not immune from
being served with a complaint in his capacity as first secretary of
ZANU PF.
The Standard (4/11) naturally followed this up by explaining the
next step in the matter in its story, Mugabe faces US$63m suit.
The paper explained that following the US court ruling a US
magistrate was now expected to rule in the lawsuit against
Mugabe, this time in his party portfolio capacity. It quoted the
spokesman for the plaintiffs, Topper Whitehead, to support this
assertion and explain what happened: “… We have fulfilled all
legal requirements while ZANU PF chose to squander their
opportunity by not appearing in court after the papers were
served on them. They were therefore held in default.”
Notably however, none of the newspapers provided any information
about the fate of Ministers Mudenge and Moyo and whether the
court had absolved them.

5. OBJECTIVITY- MMPZ disappointing?
By Ben Mahaka,

Impartiality seems to have died completely within everyone in
Zimbabwe who has the responsibility of informing. While this may
please those amongst us who want to advance their causes at any
cost and those who need to have their skewed views corroborated
– no matter how patently obvious the shortcomings in reporting, it
does nothing but shame the writers in the eyes of those who
somehow manage to remain impartial and understand the meaning
of journalistic ethics.

It’s even more troubling when the referees like yourselves can justly
be accused of the above.

I used to look forward to your weekly emails that analyzed trends
in the Zimbabwean media. You reported clearly and justified your
comments but over the past year you have also clearly taken an
emotionally charged and biased view that clearly is fed by the
same political interests that drive the independent press. (The word
“independent” is used loosely here because we all know that
owners often influence editorial policy).
Your role (in your own words) “is to sensitize media practitioners to
their role in presenting balanced and impartial information” - not to
rant and rave in line with anything that is claimed in the private
press – even if these views are expressed unchallenged in your
social circles and so you appear heroic in your friends’ eyes.

By choosing to be monitors, you have chosen a much narrower
route than the man on the street. You have chosen to disagree with
close friends and even your paymasters if you can see that they
are wrong – no matter how impolite that might seem. You have
committed to awarding penalties to the away team if one of the
players on your home team players commits a foul.

When you stop seeing any fault in your home team then the whole
game is a farce. When, during the 90 minutes that the game is
played, you support one team, you have become a cheat, and you
are now no better than the hooligans throwing bottles from the
bleachers. You are even more corrupt than they are because you
masquerade as defenders of fairness.

I strongly believe in a free and diverse press and I welcomed the
introduction of the independent press in this country. I saw it as
means of holding a too-powerful government accountable for its
policies and deeds. I believed that having an independent press to
spar with the government-controlled media would stimulate
constructive debate that would lead to constructive change in our
nation. They have proved me wrong…and you have disappointed
many of us out here.

Ends
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