IRIN Focus on problems in the media

The way the official media in Zimbabwe have covered key problems facing the country has been so biased towards the government that the public was amazed this week to detect a slight change of attitude. As it became clear in the early hours on Tuesday that the new opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was set to take nearly half the seats in parliament from a government which until this week had held all but three of them, the official ‘The Herald’ announced the change under a banner headline: “Tsvangirai loses in Buhera North”. Reflecting the main story The main story then went on to say how the MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s bid to make it into parliament had “flopped” as the country’s fifth parliamentary elections “headed for a blitz finish with ZANU-PF in the lead, with 51 seats against his party’s 48.” By the end of the day, the ruling ZANU-PF came home with 62 seats, the MDC 57, and one going to an independent party. By the next day, however, ‘The Herald’ announced the final results under the headline “Zimbabwe on firmer ground”. It was a quote from a speech by President Robert Mugabe which the paper then ran in full. A speech in which he called for reconciliation after weeks of violence and bloodshed in the run-up to the election, but in which he stopped short of saying whether his next government would be one of national unity. Toning down the rhetoric Diplomats and monitors of the print and broadcast media had all expected a headline saying something like, “ZANU-PF sweeps to victory”. Wednesday’s headline, they agreed, was definitely toned down from the usual diet. The state-run Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC), meanwhile, appeared to have dropped the face and the voice of one of Mugabe’s key propagandists, that of Jonathan Moyo, a party intellectual who used every opportunity to blame the country’s ills on the British, an international conspiracy, the BBC and CNN. Instead, from Tuesday morning, it started quoting a more moderate commentator, Luke Madhuku, a legal expert and member of a body called the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), which until recently had been much maligned by the government. “We still need to see whether Moyo’s deafening silence is because his prediction of a huge ruling party victory was wrong, and thus whether he has chosen to keep quiet for a while, or whether ZBC is reflecting the change, possibly hedging its bets,” said a diplomat. On Wednesday too, ‘The Herald’ devoted front page space to comments by Tsvangirai saying he accepted the outcome. That too, in a sense, was unusual for the paper which is widely considered a ruling party mouthpiece. In an editorial largely reflecting the tone of Mugabe’s televised address to the nation, it said: “The task for the new parliamentarians and all Zimbabweans is to reconcile, reunite, revive the economy and rebuild the nation. Supporters always take their cues from the leaders and we trust that the new MPs will not be found wanting.” For the real story, Zimbabweans had to turn to the independent ‘Daily News’ which carried the rest of Tsvangirai’s remarks under the headline that the MDC will contest the results in 20 constituencies where violence and intimidation he said had prevented his party campaigning, and where it suspected the vote counting had not been honest. All week, the ‘Daily News’ has also run stories about concerns at the potential for violence in the countryside where ruling party intimidation cited by local and international observers was heaviest. The official media ignored the latter story, and its talk of “reconciliation” is also seen by opponents of the government as merely a subtle attempt to sweep the horrors of the bloodshed out of sight and out of mind. The other key stories carried by the state media was that South African observers had declared the poll free and fair, and quoting various other observer groups commending the peaceful manner of the voting. Their remarks, condemning the violence, were omitted. Again, an editorial columnist in the ‘Daily News’ wrote on Wednesday: “Before our elections, 30-odd people had died, all killed because of their political views. Whoever is suggesting the election was free and fair ought to be doused with boiling oil.” It went on to carry in full a statement by the EU observers that the election could not be considered free and fair. According to the independent Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ), for weeks, indeed months, the examples have abounded, as the official media unquestioningly carried the views of government and ZANU-PF officials and little else, so long as it reflected favourably on the authorities. IRIN made several attempts to reach the editors of ‘The Herald’ and ZBC to get their views on the charges of bias in favour of the ruling party. When the issues were put to Anani Maruta, ZBC’s Controller of News and Current Affairs, he said: “I hear your questions but because you probably received this private telephone number from the MMPZ, I will not respond. That organisation supports British interests.” In a public defence of its news coverage this week, the country’s main evening television news announcer, Colin Harvey, said ZBC had offered each opposition party a free half-hour of airtime, but that not all of them had taken up the offer. He did not elaborate before going on to the next item of news. “We too have noticed the very slight changes,” MMPZ director Andrew Moyse told IRIN. “If this is a good sign, we certainly welcome it. The ZBC indeed seems to have dropped Mr Moyo in favour of Mr Madhuku, but it is still too early to tell.” The MMPZ, an independent trust supported by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), the Communication Assistance Foundation (CAF), and other donors such as Article 19 and the Swedish Development Agency (SIDA), had found in a recent review that 75 percent of local news stories in the country were compiled from a single news source, 22 percent from two or more sources, and only 5 percent from more than two sources. Television, the main government mouthpiece The official media generally failed to carry the views of those chastised by the government. In one key example, the MMPZ review said: “Zimbabweans are ill informed about the war in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). They were not consulted through parliament about the intervention in the first place. At the time the impression given to television viewers through the voices of ministers was that support for President Laurent-Desire Kabila of DRC would result in good business opportunities for investors.” It also cited improper coverage of the country’s economic crisis. In one example this week, the state media did not carry an important piece of government information: That the government is set to introduce fuel rationing through the introduction of a coupon system. The announcement by the finance secretary the day the election results came out was carried only in the ‘Daily News’. The MMPZ said the simmering dispute between Mugabe and the international lending agencies had been “improperly” covered in the official media. The official media were loathe to point out any shortfalls and mistakes of the government, and it generally avoided “bad news” issues such as official corruption, or the country’s HIV/AIDS pandemic. The under-reporting of health problems, MMPZ said, was a fault with the media as a whole in Zimbabwe. “ZANU-PF overwhelmingly dominates ZBC television news,” it said. “This is not surprising, but since 1980, while the opposition parties have received on average 20 percent of the vote in every general election, their allocation of 0.5 percent of television coverage cannot be called fair.” Radio, the biggest media audience MMPZ research has found that radio news into which more than 4 million people tune in each week, carries 400 items of news a week comprising “unbalanced” reports mainly drawn from a single source. “This lack of balance is not confined to political stories or so-called sensitive stories. It afflicts the whole news output. Single sourced reports are the entrenched style of radio news.” Fairness, equitable coverage, public service and balance are “foreign” to radio news in Zimbabwe. It also cited abuses, such as ruling party political propaganda going out as news. “Outrageous statements by leaders are reported without challenge. Politicians get coverage not because they make news, but because they spoke in public,” it said. The private media Moyse said the private media in Zimbabwe, which comprise newspapers only because the government has not granted private or independent broadcasting licences, continued to “courageously” fill the gap for the expression of discontent, dissent and alternative viewpoints from those purveyed in the public media. Although the MMPZ has criticised the independent press for being too reliant on unnamed sources, and also failing to cover the HIV/AIDS and health crisis properly, it said this was in part because Zimbabwe remained a “fearful nation where people are scared to be named”. The absence of legislation on the free flow of information has not made things easier for the privately owned media. As the law stands, it does not provide an adequate environment for competent, professional journalism, while government officials and institutions remain unaccountable. “Thus they feel no need to talk to journalists,” it said. “This has created a very polarised environment in Zimbabwe,” Moyse said. “The private media have found themselves obliged to report on all the omissions and distortions of the public media. Were it not for them, we may have had a very different outcome in this election. They have provided the public a crucial, alternate outlook.”