Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe

Monday April 30th to Sunday May 6th, 2001

SUMMARY

The state media swamped its audiences with stories about the late
Minister of Youth, Development, Gender and Employment Creation
Border Gezi. In the bulletins monitored (7am, Nhau/Indaba and
8pm) ZBCTV devoted 330 minutes to news, and 90 minutes of
them, representing 27%, to Border Gezi. Notably, the main 8 pm
news bulletins carried just 35 minutes on matters concerning
Gezi’s death out of a total of 180 minutes given to the bulletin’s
news section. But in the 7 am and Nhau/Indaba bulletins, totaling
150 minutes, 55 minutes (or nearly 37%) were devoted to issues
related to the minister. In The Herald, only the violence of the May
Day celebrations pushed the Gezi story from its lead position on
the front page in its first four issues of the week. By contrast, very
little appeared in the private Press on the topic and The Daily News
apologized for not reporting his death in its Monday issue.

All the media reported the disruptions to the May Day workers’
celebrations, but the state-owned media took the opportunity to
discredit the ZCTU and blame the violence on “opposition political
hooligans” (The Herald comment 2/5). In the process, it attempted
to give credibility to the intervention of war veterans’ leader, Joseph
Chinotimba. The private Press were more even-handed, reporting
clashes between MDC and ZANU PF youths, as well as the war
veterans’ intervention at the events in Harare and Bulawayo.
Coverage of the message from the ZCTU leadership to its members
was lost in the reports on the political conflict.

Political violence continued to be reported, mainly in the private
Press, with 20 reports in The Daily News all of which attributed the
violence to ZANU PF supporters, while The Herald just reported
four cases, all blamed on the MDC or its supporters.

BORDER GEZI’S FUNERAL

ZBCTV led the state owned media’s saturation coverage of events
leading up to Minister Gezi’s funeral at Heroes Acre. And the
public broadcaster continued to air excerpts of the proceedings and
repeats of eulogies and condolence messages at interludes
outside its news bulletins throughout its programming right through
the week. While radio appeared to confine most reference to Gezi
to its news bulletins, it also carried numerous reports about him
that should have been condensed into one concise report. For
example, on April 30th, five of the nine reports on Radio 2/4’s 8pm
bulletins were condolence messages, eulogies and
announcements. The next day, five of the 13 reports on Radio 1/3’s
1pm bulletins were about Gezi.
Like Zimpapers’ titles, ZBC’s news coverage of the mourning, the
announcement of Gezi's status as a national hero, and the funeral
itself, lacked any news assessment and were merely presented as
lengthy “event” reports.
For example, Zimpapers’ titles (3/5) merely repeated President
Mugabe’s graveside speech, but The Daily News recognized the
news value in the president’s revelation that some of his ministers
were accepting bribes from farmers and used it to lead its story
(and the paper) on Gezi’s funeral.
ZBC reported, but did not question the fact, that the decision to
award the Minister national hero status rested with the ZANU PF
Politburo (all stations 6am, 30/4). But The Zimbabwe Mirror (4/5)
did. Pointing out that ZANU PF presently holds the exclusive
authority to decide who should be declared a national hero, it
suggested national structures that could, in future, fulfill this task.
Only the Standard noted that Gezi’s parliamentary seat was being
challenged in the High Court, but The Zimbabwe Independent
managed to avoid any reference to his death and funeral.

WORKERS’S DAY

The political strife that plagued the May Day celebrations
dominated all the media and the voice of the workers was all but
lost in the process. So too, was the message delivered by ZCTU
president, Lovemore Matombo. The Daily News (2/5) didn’t carry
any of it, while The Herald (2/5) buried excerpts of it on the turn
page beneath comments from Chinotimba and Chenjerai Hunzvi.
ZBCTV (8pm, 1/5) did air a sound-bite of Matombo demanding a
minimum wage of $14 700, but carried it next to a sound-bite from
the uninvited Chinotimba saying the workers had lost their
confidence in the ZCTU. None of the media found anybody to
question what right the war veterans had to interfere in another
organization’s event, but The Herald did its best to claim that
Chinotimba had won the support of the workers in a severely
biased report of May Day’s events. It included several
uncorroborated statements like:
“Workers said the ZCTU was preoccupied by opposition party
politics at the expense of the worker. The labour body denies
the allegation.”
And:
“(The) poor turn-out…suggesting lost faith in the labour body
by the workers, was recorded in Harare, Bulawayo and
Mutare.”
The Sunday Mail’s (6/5) grossly biased feature highlighting the
“success” of Chinotimba’s illegal intervention in industrial disputes
also attempted to discredit the ZCTU by talking about “the
marriage of convenience between labour and business”, which,
it claimed, was made in a futile attempt to dislodge the ruling party;
an opinion passing as fact in a news story that was reinforced in its
comment.
The Herald’s comment (2/5) also attacked the ZCTU’s association
with the opposition MDC and, like its Sunday sister, argued that
this had isolated the trade union movement from the workers.
A more balanced and informative analysis of trade unionism in The
Zimbabwe Independent also observed that the "labour movement
(was) losing (its) clout", but attributed this to the shrinking formal
sector, economic hardship and government repression. It quoted a
recent ZCTU study and, like a story in The Financial Gazette (3/5)
relied on the observations of South Africa's trade union Congress
leader, Zwelinzima Vavi, criticizing the Zimbabwe government for its
repression of the trade union movement. They also quoted the
secretary-general of the Africa section of the International
Confederation of Free Trade Unions saying that trade unionism has
been important in the termination of one-party state dictatorships
and that "in this democratization process some governments
fear the role of the trade union movement".
The Zimbabwe Independent also argued that trade unions had
every right to hold political agendas, noting that union activists in
colonial Rhodesia had played a major role in the country's
nationalist revolution.
In another report about May Day events in Bulawayo, The
Independent quoted "sources within ZANU PF" claiming that the
ruling party had planted supporters in the crowd to heckle and
harrass the ZCTU leaders there. The Herald's May Day story (2/5)
featured a headline noting that the ZCTU leadership had been
booed in Bulawayo, but failed to report the fact in the story itself,
which devoted only one sentence of what it said was a Ziana report
on the event in Bulawayo. But it gave considerable space to
excerpts from a statement by the Minister of Labour and Social
Security, which it had carried in full the previous day.
The Daily News carried more informative accounts of events at both
venues and best summed up what happened to the May Day
celebration:
"In the end, it turned out not to be a Workers' Day event, but a
political showdown between MDC and ZANU PF."
Only ZBCTV carried the voice of the workers in ZBC's coverage of
the event, which had portrayed it as a political tug-of-war between
the war veterans and the ruling party against the ZCTU in the
countdown to May Day.
MMPZ statistics show that on Radio 1/3 of the reports about May
Day, 11 voices were from the ZCTU, 2 were from local government,
2 from war veterans and five from Zanu PF. No ordinary workers
voices were quoted on Radio 1/3 on the bulletins monitored. On
ZBCTV, one voice was local government, three from ordinary
workers, one from MDC, seven from Zanu PF, three war veterans
and 13 from the ZCTU.

News reports concentrated on the political conflict instead of the
issues facing workers. ZBC highlighted the fact that the top table
was full of MDC and NCA people, but did not question why the
ZCTU had allowed them to be there. (May 1st, Radio 1/3 1pm, 6pm
and 8pm). All stations reported that Chinotimba, had spoken at the
celebrations, but only ZBCTV was more factual, saying that the
ZCTU leadership had already left when he took the podium.
On all stations, the May Day reports were placed in the middle of
the bulletins. Only ZBCTV quoted ordinary people who said they
still had faith in the ZCTU. (May 2 Nhau/Indaba)

However, Radio 2’s current affairs coverage of the topic was
exceptional and deserves commendation (Forum on May 1 and
Enkundleni May 5). Both panels included war veterans and the
ZCTU and both had live callers. For the first time, there was an
indication that not all ordinary people support the activities of the
war veterans or the hijacking of workers’ issues for political gain.
The general view from the public was that the war veterans were
using workers to further their own political interests as they were
only targeting white-owned companies and ignoring labour disputes
at national institutions like the University of Zimbabwe and the
former Ministry of Information (Forum).
One caller summed it up thus:
“We don’t want war veterans at the stadium because they are
politicians. We want worker leaders [only, so that] we tell them
what we want them to do. We do not want any political parties
today. Their adverts inviting us to come to the stadium – we
have heard them but it is our platform as workers.”

POLITICAL VIOLENCE

The private press continued to highlight incidents of political
violence, including the invasion of companies. The state-owned
press continued to endorse the invasion of companies, while
ignoring incidents of political violence and intimidation extensively
reported in the private press.
The Standard (6/5) continues to run a summary of acts of
lawlessness perpetrated during the week. Below is a summary of
the number of incidents of political violence reported by the Press.
Publication No. of stories
The Herald 4
The Daily News 20
The Zimbabwe Independent 2
The Zimbabwe Mirror 2
The Financial Gazette 5
Other papers (except the Standard) did not report any incidents of
political violence in the week. (Due to erratic supplies, figures from
the Bulawayo based Chronicle are not available)
Of note is the selective reporting on incidences of violence in the
press. The public press (particularly The Herald) mainly reports
political violence when perpetrated against ZANU-PF supporters,
whilst the private press especially, The Daily News, does the
opposite. MMPZ deplores this selective censorship of important
news.
However, private press should be commended for consistently
carrying news and analysis highlighting the breakdown of the rule
of law in the country.

There were nine reports on urban political violence on ZBCTV, three
on Radio 1/3 and four on Radio 2/4.
ZBC ignored the Catholic Bishops’ report condemning violence and
the breakdown of the rule of law, and the best the state-controlled
print media could do was a reference to it in an opinion piece
masquerading as news in The Sunday Mail attacking the Catholic
Church.
ZBC continued to report the war veterans' campaign against
commercial enterprises favourably, and even used a Daily News
report that MDC’s Munyaradzi Gwisai had supported it as an
effective way to settle labour disputes.
The state-owned media also reported that the war veterans
association was threatening to take stern measures to discipline
what it described as rogue elements masquerading as war veterans
extorting money from companies, but gave no examples. The
reports gave the cell-phone numbers for Hunzvi and Chinotimba for
people to call to check if an intervention by war vets was
“authentic” (4/5, ZBC Radio 6am-8am, ZBCTV and The Herald). But
none of the reports questioned whether the war veterans were
taking over the duties of the police and indeed, the Labour
Relations Tribunal.

MINISTER NKOSANA MOYO’S RESIGNATION
The Daily News and The Herald (05/05) reported the sudden
resignation of the Minister of Industry and International Trade Dr.
Nkosana Moyo.
The reasons for the resignation were not readily available in the
press, save for speculation.
The Herald merely announced the development, together with a
short history of the minister, while The Daily News suggested
possible reasons for Moyo's resignation. The Sunday Mail reported
that Moyo remained tight lipped about why he resigned, but The
Standard speculated that the minister could no longer tolerate the
“prevailing lawlessness” in the country.
This important news was not given the prominence it deserved on
ZBC. ZBCTV only broke the story late on Friday (11pm) and was
reported as the third item on radio the following morning, May 4.
But there were no follow-ups on ZBC in the bulletins monitored.

CLOSURE OF MUGABE’S ACCOUNT
The Standard (06/05) carried a front page story on the closure of
President Mugabe’s Barclays Bank account, with a sub-title
announcing Government threatens to withdraw licence. Whilst
the managing director of the bank confirmed the closure, attributing
it to a “genuine error”, the paper failed to corroborate the alleged
government threat to withdraw the bank’s licence. While the paper
quoted Alex Jongwe saying “we were not threatened with any
withdrawal of our licence. People are just exaggerating…”,
there was no evidence in the article to establish that such a threat
had been issued except for a passing reference by unnamed
sources
Ends

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