Media coverage of land issue slammed

The coverage in Zimbabwe of the countrywide invasions of white-owned farms by war veterans has “illustrated the worst failings of the publicly funded media,” a report by an independent media watchdog said.

The Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ) said that both the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) and ZIMPAPERS, whose titles include the official ‘The Herald’ newspaper, “ignored the illegality of the action and largely failed to report the voices of those most affected”. They gave prominence instead to “the war veterans, the head of state and other senior government officials.”

ZBC did not report a 2 March press conference by the Minister of Home Affairs Dumiso Dabengwa in which he said the farm invasions by landless Zimbabweans demanding land redistribution were illegal and should be stopped by the police. Instead the main bulletins led with an interview with President Robert Mugabe in which he condoned the farm action as a “lawful demonstration by the ex-combatants”.

MMPZ’s latest update said the official media repeatedly quoted war veterans as stating the invasions, which over the past month have affected some 386 farms, were due to the rejection of the government’s draft constitution by referendum which would have allowed for expropriation of farms by the state. The fact that the government has had the ability for the last 13 years, since an independence agreement ceased to be binding, to enact legislation to do that, was unexplored.

“None of the publicly funded media examined the lack of a sustainable land redistribution policy as being the root cause of the problem,” MMPZ said. “Neither the legality of the invasions nor whether they are a sustainable solution to the land problem were questioned.”