MIC rejects WAN resolution on Zim

MIC rejects WAN resolution on Zim
By George Chellah in Harare, Zimbabwe
Saturday June 09, 2007 [04:00]

THE Media and Information Commission (MIC) has rejected the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) board’s resolution on Zimbabwe, stating that information given to conferences is highly selective and never verified. And the MIC has stated that media activist organisations such as Reporters Without Frontiers (RSF) and the CPJ had no credibility in Zimbabwe because their double standards were astounding.

Reacting to the latest WAN board’s resolution on the media situation in Zimbabwe, MIC executive chairman Dr Tafataona Mahoso yesterday stated that the resolution was similar to those issued by similar organisations in the past concerning Zimbabwe.

“The Media and Information Commission has been monitoring scores of statements and resolutions issued by various media associations and NGOs lying about the media situation in the country. The latest of these is the resolution on Zimbabwe issued by the Board of WAN attending the 60th World Newspaper Congress in Cape town, South Africa, from 3 to 6 June 2007,” Dr Mahoso stated. “Instead of protecting and promoting those professionals who have identified themselves to the public as journalists and are accredited as such both by the MIC and by their associations, the statements on Zimbabwe tend to focus on unaccredited individuals working clandestinely for unknown organisations.

“Indeed, the only person specified in the WAN resolution as a journalist murdered for his courageous work had not worked as a journalist for ten years at the time of his murder.”
He stated that the MIC’s public register of journalists was created in 2002 and (the late) Edward Chikomba has never appeared in that register all these years.

“Our information is that he was last employed as a journalist in 1997, long before the establishment of MIC or the creation of the access to information and protection of privacy Act,” he stated.

Dr Mahoso stated that the MIC could also confirm that Chikomba never applied for accreditation as a journalist between 2002 and the time of his alleged murder on March 29, 2007.

“The people who claim that he was working as a journalist and murdered for doing courageous journalistic work must fully own up to exactly who his employers were and what kind of assignment he was doing, since they appear to know so much about it,” Dr Mahoso stated. “What the commission knows is that if Chikomba was doing media work without accreditation and an identifiable and registered employer, most legal systems in most democracies would classify him as a spy.”

He stated that the US and the UK were responsible for the deaths of more than 170 journalists in Iraq since March 2003.

“Yet RSF has the audacity to tell the world that the US ranks No. 56, the UK ranks No.27, and Iran ranks No. 162 in the protection of press freedom while Iraq ranks on No. 154! There is no media policy in Iraq which is independent of the occupying military authority made up of the US and the UK,” Dr Mahoso stated.

“So why do the ICJ and RSF fail to see that their rankings of the US and UK is a travesty? And how can countries such as Iran, Cuba and China be credibly presented as worse for journalism than the Iraq holocaust under US-UK occupation?”

He stated that it was necessary, therefore, for the MIC to go beyond the WAN resolution in order to bring out the context within which such a “world-wide” resolution could be issued based on lies.

“Our mandate and responsibilities are based on an Act of Parliament and we operate in terms of publicly gazetted rules and regulations.

This means that we are a public information agency and we value accurate public information. The issue of press freedom, the Daily News and the other papers mentioned at so many fora is a public information issue,” Dr Mahoso stated. “But reports coming out of Zimbabwe are usually not verified. The Commission values very highly any inquiry based on a genuine need to know what exactly happened to Edward Chikomba, Gift Phiri, Bright Chibvuri, the Daily News, the Tribune and the Weekly Times and why.

“In order for that objective of establishing the facts to be achieved, it is important for those seeking to know to avoid lies, innuendo, invective and slogans, which may do well in conveying opinion, anger and even hatred but always fail to solicit accurate information. The product in such cases is the stigmatization and demonisation of a whole people, not public information.”

Dr Mahoso stated that the highest number of journalists murdered anywhere in the world since 2003 was in Iraq, which is occupied by the very same powers trying to stop Zimbabwe from merely regulating journalists and publishers.

“The problem with the words used by WAN, MISA, RSF and CPJ to describe the Zimbabwe media situation is that such words as draconian, repressive, free press, undemocratic, unrepressed, human rights and so on- are all detached from actual content and context,” he stated. “A certain media service in Zimbabwe does not automatically become free, independent and robust just because someone sitting in Britain, the US, Australia, New Zealand or South Africa has given it that label.”

He stated that there was need to be careful with who the sources of information are and what motivates them to give such selective information.

“In the case of Zimbabwe, the people who could give the WAN congress information on the other side of the Zimbabwe story are banned from Britain, the US and Europe, for fear that their side of the story may convince concerned Europeans and North Americans to look again and listen again,” Dr Mahoso stated.

“A while ago, the US Ambassador to the FAO attacked the head of the FAO for allowing Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to visit Italy, attend the FAO conference and speak. Have the WAN or CPJ written to President George Bush or Prime Minister Blair to tell them not to ban and silence Zimbabweans who have their own story and point of view to add to what the British government and its white allies normally like to hear? No!”

He stated that it was obvious from reading the various resolutions and statements on Zimbabwe that the information given to conferences was highly selective and never verified.

“There are two critical questions to ask when assessing sources of information on Zimbabwe. The first question is whether the group or individual source is sponsored. If the group or individual is sponsored, is it possible to identify the sponsors and the reasons for sponsorship? Sponsorship of sources in journalism is a serious ethical offence. The second question is about the ideological orientation of the group or individual,” he stated.

Dr Mahoso stated that what was even worse than sponsorship in this was the glaring appearance of orchestration.

He stated that the media bodies had no credibility in Zimbabwe because their double standards were astounding.

Dr Mahoso stated that the main reason why the so-called “independent media” in Zimbabwe could not regulate themselves was because they were heavily sponsored.

“The Daily News was 95 per cent British-owned when it started. It also received free newsprint from foreign donors. Maybe that is what being independent means to some people,” he stated.

In a resolution passed at the end of its 60th World Congress in Cape Town, South Africa, the WAN board accused the government of Zimbabwe of harassing, arresting, detaining and stifling press freedom.

“The recurrent violations of journalists’ basic rights and the complete disregard for the rule of law of the Zimbabwean leadership and law enforcement agencies are unacceptable...the WAN board calls on President Robert Mugabe to put an end to arbitrary and violent arrest and detention of journalists, to firmly commit to uphold international standards of freedom of expression and freedom of the pres in Zimbabwe,” stated the resolution.