After independence the character of the print and electronic media generally reflected the interests of the new black leadership. The structural organization and output of the public media glaringly reflected a strong grip by the new black political elite who showed no remorse in using the public media to push for their class and party interests. To start with, the critical distinction between party and government was blurred with the ruling party directly imposing itself on national institutions, including of course, the national media. The control of the national media had always been subtly, and internal and external reasons had always been used to justify the control of the media. Firstly, there was the real threat of apartheid South Africa that had a series of destabilizations in the 1980s. Secondly was the controversial internal civil strife in Matebeleland, which government used to impose a state of emergence in the region and squash oppositional discourses in society and the media, in particular.
The developments in the media after independence therefore need to be seen in the context of these factors and the tightening of control over debate and political expression by the ruling party. Although it was generally believed that the media was going to be primarily guided by the new national goals of development, decolonization and democratization, in reality government used it to undermine some of these noble goals.
Print and Electronic media 1980-2002
i. The public press
Table I: Major papers
At independence the RPP was changed to Zimbabwe Newspapers (Zimpapers), a public quoted company listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange. However ownership of The Herald and The Chronicle continued to be in the foreign hands of the South African APP, and this remained a thorn in the flesh of the new government. In 1981, with a grant of US $ 6 million from the Nigerian government, the government bought about 45% of the APP shares at Zimpapers. This ensured government of the control that it desperately wanted, and later on, it increased its shares to 51%. Generally, all the state controlled newspapers have served as a mouthpiece for the government since independence. This has tended to affect their circulation adversely. For example in 2000, the circulation of The Herald fell from 90 000 to 60 000 a day because of direct state interference in its editorial issues (The Daily News, May 21,2001, p6).
Although the public print media are sometimes erroneously referred to as the national media, it is actually misleading to speak of the national media in Zimbabwe. The reality is that most of the newspapers are regional papers.
The Herald and its weekend sister paper, The Sunday Mail, give coverage mainly to
events taking place in Mashonaland, especially Harare, whereas The Chronicle and The
Sunday News tend to focus on the Bulawayo city, Matebeleland and the Midlands region. In a research conducted between January and May in 1999 by the Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe (MMPZ) the organization discovered that Harare takes about 80% of space in The Herald whereas areas in Matebeleland only have 4% of the space in the paper. However, things are slightly different with The Chronicle as coverage is at 38% to 49% respectively.
The circulation of newspapers is normally limited to urban areas because it follows the road and railway network between towns and cities. Although literacy is around 80% in Zimbabwe, readership of newspapers is affected by the rural and urban population divide. About 64% of the adult population in Zimbabwe lives in rural areas while 36% lives in urban areas. Rural areas are inaccessible due to the poor road infrastructure that has tended to compound distribution problems in rural areas.
a.
The Mass Media Trust (MMT)
In 1981, an ‘independent’ Board of Trustees called the Mass Media Trust (MMT) was formed to run the national public media on behalf of government and the people. The MMT, dissolved in 2001, was supposed to act as a buffer between the government and the publicly owned media such as Zimpapers and the national news agency, the Zimbabwe Inter-Africa News Agency (ZIANA). The Board was also going to be responsible for the employment and firing of the key staff like editors and managers.
The independence of the MMT was important in the new dispensation in that while government wanted to control the mass media, it also at the same time needed donor assistance and funding which came on condition that it upheld the principles of a free media and an independent judiciary.
In principle, the MMT enjoyed some level of independence in that although the Minister of Information appointed its members, he could not however, remove them from office once appointed. In reality, the MMT became an instrument of entrenching government control. Dr. Nathan Shamuyarira who was the Minister of Information at the time, appointed his friends and ruling party loyalists who barely knew anything about the media. Dr. Davison Sadza, the inaugural chairman of the Board of trustees of the MMT, was a personal friend of the minister and a devout ruling party supporter. As a result, it became very easy for the minister to be directly in charge of the MMT as he dictated to them on what to do. A number of editors from the public print media such as Farayi Munyuki, Henry Muradzikwa and Geoff Nyarota were fired from their positions by the government as a result of the lack of autonomy by the MMT.
Nyarota’s case is probably the most tragic one in the history of journalism in Zimbabwe. In 1989 Nyarota who was the editor of The Chronicle, exposed a scandal involving cabinet ministers who bought cars from a national car assembly plant and resold them to the public at exorbitant prices. This profiteering scandal became popularly known as the Willogate scandal. Nyarota was removed from his position and ‘promoted’ to a previously unheard of post of Director of Publications at Zimpapers. Although editors of the public media had been fired from their positions as far back as 1983, the Nyarota case had been positively unique in that the public media were beginning to try to hold the government responsible and accountable to its own people through investigative journalism.
The MMT, as many came to realize, was merely a strategy by government to allay the fears of the donor community and white journalists who threatened to live the country if political interference were to persist after independence.
Although the MTT was seemingly diversified in its composition, its members did not represent any organized groups with common interests. This weakness meant that the trustees could not speak on behalf of anyone as they lacked a clear-cut public mandate.
The government manipulated this flaw to ensure a tight and complete grip on Zimpapers.
Although political interference in the public media persisted, the MMT never said anything and a culture of political interference developed with each and every Minister of information after Nathan Shamuyarira making sure that the media were kept under a tight leash.
In 1995, the Cabinet ordered the MMT Board to amend the Trust deed to allow the president and Minister of information to give directives to the Board formally without any questioning or resistance. Direct control and manipulation became incessant, ruthless and unbearable with the advent of Professor Jonathan Moyo as the Minister of State for Information and Publicity, in 2000. Since his arrival to replace Chenamo Chimtengwende, the public media has faced turbulent times and editors of the public media keep getting fired and replaced by those who are most loyal to him. Foreign journalists have been part of the list of casualties. Mercedes Saygues, a free lance for the South African Mail and Guardian and BBC correspondent, Joseph Winter, were deported in February 2001 for allegedly giving Zimbabwe a hostile coverage.
b.
The Matebeleland civil strife
After independence, the government’s wish to maintain a monolithic environment had its practical manifestation in what is generally referred to as the Matebeleland crisis. In 1982, government forces moved into the Matebeleland area to squash the support base of the major opposition party, ZAPU, in a bid to create a one party state. The Matebeleland region is home to the Ndebele ethnic group that comprises about 15% of the total Zimbabwean population. The other ethnic group is the Shona people who are about 70% of the Zimbabwean population. Although both ethnic groups rallied behind ZAPU in the early years of colonial resistance, things changed when a splinter group of the radicals, the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) was formed in 1963. The Ndebele people remained loyal to ZAPU while the majority of the Shona people shifted their allegiance to ZANU PF. The latter, led by Robert Mugabe, won the 1980 elections and ZAPU won some seats and became an opposition that enjoyed parliamentary representation. This was not conducive for ZANU PF plans for a one-party state that it pursued openly until 1990. More than 20 000 civilians were massacred by the Korean trained Fifth Brigade whose presence in the region was purportedly to fight an insignificant number of dissidents who were linked to ZAPU. In addition to this, a lot people were raped, maimed, detained and thousands disappeared.
The government declared a state of emergence in the region for more than five years and it was impossible for the media to investigate developments in the region as some places were declared out of bounds. The editorial comments of The Chronicle, whose editor was Nyarota at the time, show that the paper was entirely supportive of government action. One of the private newspapers, The Daily News, which is ironically under the editorship of Nyarota, tried in vain in 2001 to serialize a Catholic Commission of Justice and Peace (CCJP) report of the atrocities. The efforts failed after Nyarota was vilified by government and civic groups in Matebeleland as a hypocrite.
The Matebeleland massacres marked a dark period in the history of Zimbabwean journalism as it led to the establishment of a culture of self-censorship in the public media. Since then a culture of self-censorship, fear and government praise continued to thrive in the public media.
c.
The Community Newspaper Group (CNG)
The CNG was a product of government’s emphasis on the so-called development journalism in the early eighties. The government believed that newspapers were supposed to serve as a linking device between the state and the governed, and also serve as a platform for the executive to articulate government policy. CNG newspapers are funded by the public and give coverage to various provinces in Zimbabwe
The CNG publishes six community newspapers namely, The Times for Midlands, Masvingo Provincial Star for Masvingo, Indonsakusa/Ilanga for Matebeleland North and South, The Mashonaland Telegraph and The Guardian, for Mashonaland Central and Chaminuka News for Manicaland and Mashonaland North provinces. The print run for these newspapers is estimated at not more than 10 000.
ii.
The Private press
The private press has been by and large, an active force in the struggle against the abuse of human rights, justice and other civil liberties by an increasingly intolerant and oppressive black ‘minority’ government in Zimbabwe. It has indeed been the mother of the democratisation agenda in the post-independence Zimbabwe. This agenda, broadly embraced by the mainstream civil society and the general public, has led to a serious polarisation between not only the public media and the private media, but also the general Zimbabwean society.
Table II: Major newspapers
The post-independence period saw a proliferation of a number of private newspapers and magazines. In 1980 Moto resurfaced as a magazine, still with its characteristic critical stance of excesses in government. The magazine, still owned by the Catholic Church, was the only medium that dared to expose the Matebeleland atrocities perpetrated by the government. Later The Parade magazine also resurfaced but continued to shun politics as it had done during the colonial period. It continued with its big colorful pictures that were believed to attract a big readership from the blacks. The Parade is owned by Thompson Publications, and Alex Thompson who is the Managing Director has 51% shares while other minor shareholders share the other spoils.
The 1990s saw a mushrooming of more private and civic print media that was representative of the diverse interests in the country. Women, academics, churches, pressure groups and political parties used these media to articulate their interests and participate in the public sphere. Although some of these media have disappeared due to harsh economic times, the major ones are, Social Change and Development for academics, Mahogany for women, Speak Out, People’s Voice for the ruling party, The Worker for the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) and The Socialist Worker for the International Socialist Organization (ISO). The impact of these newspapers and magazines on the politics of the day is however low because of their very low circulation. A magazine called The Horizon however made immense contributions to democracy in Zimbabwe by exposing corruption and economic mismanagement in government even though it was poorly distributed.
In 1992, Modus Publications that was owned by Elias Rusike, added a second title to The Financial Gazette, a paper that has a subtle mix of financial and political news. The Daily Gazette was the first attempt to challenge The Herald monopoly in Harare. It however collapsed due to advertiser resistance and under capitalization.
In 1998 a new private company called the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ) introduced about eight newspapers. The papers comprised, inter alia, The Daily News, The Dispatch, The Express, The Mercury and The Tribune. All the papers collapsed because of advertising problems, except for The Daily News. The advertising ‘cake’ in Zimbabwe was estimated at $500million in 1999 and must have gone down significantly afterwards due to the deepening economic crisis in the country.
The Daily News has always faced serious financial problems. For example, in October 1999 the paper was on the verge of collapse when it was reportedly failing to settle a Z$60 million debt. The paper survived through the benevolence of the Southern African Media Development Fund (SAMDEF) who loaned ANZ about Z$37 billion.
The ANZ is not only faced by the financial problems that pause a big threat to the diversity and plurality it offers, but also the politics of the day.
In January 2001, the newspaper’s printing press was bombed and destroyed after the Minister of State for Information and Publicity, Jonathan Moyo and the war veterans publicly castigated the paper for ‘celebrating’ the death of Laurent Kabila of the D.R.C. Laboratory tests revealed that the bomb that had been used was a military one and only trained people could operate it. In February 2002, the paper’s Bulawayo offices were also petrol bombed. The Harare offices had also been bombed in 2000 in the run up to the parliamentary elections.
At the time of inception, ANZ’s ownership structure was 60% foreign and 40% local and government was not happy about this. When government planned to legislate against foreign ownership in the media, things began to change however. The ANZ is now entirely owned by local businessmen comprising the Independent Media Group (IMG), Diamond Insurance Company and other small stockholders. In 2001, another private company called Asset Management indicated that it wanted to purchase about 60% of the shares at ANZ. This was going to make it the prime shareholder at the ANZ. However, some shareholders disproved of the move and this culminated in a protracted litigation process in the courts that has spilled into 2002.
The Zimbabwe Independent and The Standard, formerly owned by Clive Murphy and Clive Wilson, are now owned by IMG, Managing Director Trevor Ncube and other minor shareholders. The IMG has 49% shareholding at The Independent while Ncube holds the remaining 51%. The IMG also holds 36% of the shares in The Standard while Ncube and Mark Chavunduka, editor of the paper, holds 39% and 25% respectively.
The Zimbabwe Independent targets the business people but also publishes some significant amount of political news. The Standard, launched in 1997, has always been very critical of the government and in 1999, its editor, Mark Chavunduka and journalist Ray Choto, were tortured by the army after publishing a story about a foiled military coup. In reference to the incident on 9 January 2002, General Vitalis Zvinavashe who is the commander of the army, warned the private press for being overzealous and ordered the press to stop publishing such stories.
The private press however is not without weaknesses. To some extent the newspapers lack in-depth analysis of issues in their news. The press suffers the dilemma of how to be critical of its government without necessarily playing into the hands of other manipulative global forces that may not be fascist in orientation but in motive. The land question in particular has never been well told in the private press because the history behind the problem has always been emphatically ignored.
The other problem is that of an ethical vacuum. Ethics are severely flouted in both the private as well as public press. In 1999 two journalists from The Sunday Mail were arrested after a businessman who they had solicited for bribes from so as to give his businesses a positive coverage, trapped them. In view of such problems, government appointed a Media Ethics Committee in 2001 to investigate ethics in the Zimbabwean media and the report was released early 2002 with recommendations for a Media Regulatory Council. Again in February 2002, Basildon Peta, a revered journalist from The Financial Gazette, resigned disgracefully from the paper after he allegedly wrote a false story for The Independent in United Kingdom claiming that he had been detained in the police cells for a night for participating in a constitutional advocacy march. This epitomised the rot that is plaguing the press in Zimbabwe where impartial and factual journalism seems to have been replaced by advocacy and highly opinionated journalism.
iii.
Broadcasting
The Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) remains a monopoly even after the introduction of the Broadcasting Services Act, in 2001, a law that purports to liberalize the airwaves. Zimbabwe still does not have community broadcasters or private commercial broadcasters. The law, generally seen as more draconian than the laws of the colonial regime, prohibits foreign broadcasters and stipulates that all stations must broadcast 75% local content. Although the law set up a Broadcasting Authority to preside over licensing and ethical issues, in reality the Minister of State for Information and Publicity has all the powers as licenses must be given or withdrawn at his discretion.
It is important to state that the Broadcasting Services Act, was crafted in a context of an emergency when the Supreme Court had ruled that the 1957 Broadcasting Act that gave ZBC a monopoly was unconstitutional as it infringed on the freedom of expression. Immediately after the ruling, two private radio stations, Capital radio and FM100 started broadcasting from secret locations. Government used the Presidential powers to pass an emergency law to deal with what it called the ‘invasion of the airwaves’.
The ZBC is a commercial public service broadcaster which is funded through license fees and advertising. Government stopped funding the station in 1996 when the commercialization of ZBC was officially inaugurated. ZBC is divided into two sections, Zimbabwe Television (ZTV) and Radio services. While television enjoys about 55% national coverage, radio has close to 65% national coverage. Although ZBC erected a Short wave radio transmission backbone in February 2002, areas such as Plumtree, Binga, Hwange and Chiredzi still have an extremely poor reception of the broadcasting signal.
a)
Television
Television broadcasting consists of two channels, ZTV1 and ZTV 2. Through the Vision 30 ZBC Restructuring program (V30) effected in late 2001, ZTV1 was divided into four portfolios namely, Newsnet (for news), Sportsnet (for sports), Kidsnet (for kids) and Production Services, for outside productions. Since the inception of V30, programming on television has changed from a heavy foreign content bias to a serious local content thrust so as to fulfil the 75% local content legal demand. Although this broadcasting law was crafted in the context of resisting global culture and the subsequent cultural domination, local film and program production capacity is still glaringly lacking and weak. Technology and expertise are still lacking. As a result, programming on ZTV1 is largely dominated by repeats and audiences have shown their resistance through keeping their screens mute, watching videos and satellite television for those who can afford. In 1999, about 179 000 people watched DSTv and SABC and satellite viewers are likely to have increased because of the fall in broadcasting standards at ZBC between 2001 and 2002.
ZTV 2, formerly an educational channel, is rented to some private station broadcasting only within the capital city. In 1997 there used to be three renters namely, Munhumutapa African Broadcasting Company (MABC), LDM Broadcasting Systems and Joy TV. MABC collapsed after it was denied the space when it broadcast a programme on the Matebeleland crisis. LDM also collapsed due to financial problems. Joy TV, owned by Leo Mugabe (President’s nephew), James Makamba and Ishmael Kadungure is the only one that has survived. The station broadcasts from 5pm to 10pm everyday for Harare residents only. Programs are mainly entertainment, consisting of soaps, drama and music. The station also broadcasts delayed and censored BBC news bulletins.
Although there have been several changes in television and radio broadcasting after independence, in reality nothing much has changed in terms of political control. Like during the RF period, broadcasting is still tightly controlled by the Minister of State for Information and Publicity. His department operates directly under the president’s office. Broadcasting continues to be closely guarded by the ruling party that has always ensured that it uses it as its propaganda machinery. For example, in 1999 when the Zimbabwean nation tried to craft a new constitution, MMPZ monitored the television news and discovered that of the 67 voices they had on the issue, only four were of the ordinary people while 32 were ZANU PF officials.
The coverage of the presidential poll in 2002 was not any different either. According to findings of the MMPZ, ZBC television carried a total of 402 election campaign storiesin its news bulletins monitored between December 1, 2001, and March 7, 2002, the penultimate day of the election campaign. Of these, 339 of them (84%) favored ZANU PF’s presidential candidate. Only 38 (or 9%) covered MDC activities, but virtually all of them sought to discredit the opposition party and its candidate. The other 24 reports gave publicity to the other three candidates contesting the election. Coverage of the presidential period on radio was the same (MMPZ Report, 2002, p3-4).
b)
Radio
Numerous changes have taken place in radio since independence. In 1980, government introduced four channels consisting of Radio One, Radio Two, Radio Three and Radio Four. Briefly, Radio One targeted English speakers, mainly diplomats, while Radio Three was basically for the youth as it focused on popular African-American music. Radio Two and Radio Four broadcast mainly in Shona and Ndebele and targeted mainly the ordinary people of diverse backgrounds.
The introduction of V30 saw a lot of changes not only in names but also in programming. Most of the stations are still in the process of trying to establish an identity in line with the new policy regulations.
Spot FM (formerly Radio 1), broadcasts in English and seems not to have fundamentally shifted from its talk shows focus. Some slight changes seem to be taking place in musical content though as more local music is now played at the station. Radio Zimbabwe (formerly Radio 2) continues to broadcast in Shona and Ndebele, targeting the general population in its various manifestations. Radio 3FM (formerly Radio 3) broadcasts in English and still targets the youth. Its music complexion has changed from foreign pop music to local pop that is played by youths who borrow the American pop music formats and inject local experience and languages. National FM (formerly Radio 4) broadcasts in all national languages that include, among others, Shona, Ndebele, Xhosa, Kalanga, Chewa, Nyanja, Venda, Tonga, Suthu, and Nambya.
The ZBC ‘monopoly’ has led to the mushrooming of donor funded satellite radio stations that are broadcasting from outside. The Voice of the People (VOP), set up on 16 June 2000 in Netherlands, broadcasts locally- produced programs in Shona, Ndebele and English through the Short Wave band.
Radio Africa, run by Zimbabweans for Zimbabweans, broadcasts from the United Kingdom on the Short Wave band. The station ran two interesting programs towards the presidential elections, ‘Party Politics’ and ‘Newsreel’. ‘Party politics’ offered an open platform for people to discuss politics while ‘Newsreel’ offered news from the perspective of those ostracized by the ZBC.
