Maravi

(TALKZIMBABWE) Feature: The media under Tsvangirai

Feature: The media under Tsvangirai
Tendai Nyatanga (alias)
Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:20:00 +0000

WHEN I attended the Harare Polytechnic I was excited that I would be a journalist. Having seen Ruben Barwe and Joseph Madimba on TV, I thought one day I would hold that microphone and report on the goings-on in Zimbabwe and sit in that “Madimba Chair” and read prime time news, or do a Shingirai “Virimayi” Tungwarara and quiz political leaders on the policies in the country.

I managed to do at least one of these things: to become a journalist, but because of the meagre salaries journalists get in the country, I preferred to freelance. At least that way I could get to choose what to write, when to write and hopefully how much money I would make out of what I write.

My colleagues in the fraternity will tell you that life has been one hell of a ride: writing for online publications, Western press and some abusive bloggers I am not at liberty to mention here. I have often felt that, despite many of my colleagues in the profession sensationalising stories to capture the headlines, I wanted to deliver timely, precise and accurate news. And I guess in many respects I have managed to do just that and am proud of my record. I have been detained several times, but released with no charges. I have to admit that I never felt it necessary to carry an accreditation card, at least given by the Media and Information Commission. (MIC) because as long as I was not working for the state media I would be treated the same wherever I went.

In that respect, you could call me a protest journalist. But, that has never compromised my approach to journalism - a profeesion that I love and respect. My stories have been truthful, accurate (at least from my point of view) and unbiased.

The changes taking place in our country gave me hope that the profession I have contributed so much to could now transform into a respectable one and we would finally do our job in peace and without too much interference. The media and information laws passed by the former Information Minister, Professor Jonathan Moyo have severely constricted our work and thwarted most of our efforts in informing the public about the goings on in the country.

After the signing of a power-sharing agreement between Zanu PF and the two formations of the MDC, many of us journalists felt optimistic that the terrain in which we operate was finally going to change, and the signs, incremental as they are, are that things could be moving in the right direction. The minor changes made to AIPPA and POSA laws are a step in the right direction although they are inadequate – at least someone somewhere is in agreement that there were excesses in the original legislation.

Events this week, however, gave me a new fright. I always boasted that I knew a few people in the MDC party who understood my plight as a journalist and was sure that I would practise safely as a journalist in a new Zimbabwe – led by the MDC, who together with myself and others, were champions in the fight for media freedom and access to information.

On Wednesday, there was a scheduled press conference that the two MDC formations had called for to announce that they were pulling out of the power-sharing arrangement until a mediator was appointed, at least that was what the original briefing and conference call indicated. The grapevine was full of speculation as to what exactly would transpire. The conference was to be held at the Strathaven residence of the Prime Minister-designate Morgan Tsvangirai and was to be addressed by the two MDC leaders, Tsvangirai and Deputy PM-Designate, Professor Arthur Mutambara.

Most of you now know that the press conference did not take place because of some disagreements over Cabinet posts between the two formations of the opposition MDC. I am not privy to what exactly transpired, but that is what we all found out at the end, when the two leaders, despite the media having waited at the residence for almost two hours, failed to appear nor to inform us what was going on. We all later had to trickle away with no official position from the leadership. Again the few journalists who had access to the "inaccessible new leadership” of the future Zimbabwe informed us that the press conference was no more.

But that is not the crux of my story.

Getting to the conference, i.e. through the gates of PM-Designate Morgan Tsvangirai’s house was no easy task and it was reflective of what we could expect in the future.

Several of us, despite waiting outside the gates for close to two hours, were barred by Tsvangirai's security guards from entering the premises because we failed to produce accreditation cards from the Media and Information Commission (MIC) – a Commission the opposition party has deemed illegal in the past and criticized for curtailing the functions of journalists and the independence of journalists in doing their work.

We wondered: How could they quickly adopt laws they criticised only a few weeks ago, or months ago, before the signing of the power-sharing arrangement? Anyone who ‘googles’ the MDC in relation to the media laws in the country would find chunks of paragraphs criticizing the MIC for its “treatment of journalists”. The spokesmen of the two MDCs are on record criticizing the harsh treatment of journalists and the MIC tops the list all the time.

Tsvangirai's guards, bodyguards or whatever we decide to call them, claimed that there were instructions from the "top" not to allow in journalists without the MIC accreditation cards. We wondered what the top was. Many Western journalists who do not carry MIC accreditation cards were allowed in. ("At least they looked authentic." We wondered if this is what Tsvangirai's guards thought.) We wondered whether they had instructions from the Chairman of the MIC, Tafataona Mahoso or the Minister of Information or the President of Zimbabwe. To many of us these individuals signify “the top”. Otherwise, who else or what else was "the top"? We then wondered how media in the “new Zimbabwe” would be like under the Prime Ministership and Deputy Prime Ministership of Tsvangirai and Mutambara respectively! Perhaps it would be business-as-usual or even worse.

At that point Professor Jonathan Moyo came to my mind. As someone who was championing democracy in Zimbabwe before he was made Information Minister, his record is not a rosy one and one that Zimbabweans would like to be reminded of. The infamous Moyo introduced many of the laws we are fighting today and brought the Ministry of Information into disrepute. I guess the public is gullible and always believes politicians when they say they have the interests of the people at heart. The manhandling we endured under Tsvangirai’s guards is reminiscent of a pre-MoU Zimbabwe where the media was muzzled and did not practise freely in certain parts of the country – treatment which the MDC said was also fighting against.

We were pushed and shoved and the MDC officials who were there never came to our rescue.

It was a relief to then hear that the press conference had been cancelled. We would not miss anything after all.

All our efforts in supporting the MDC over the years proved fruitless. The sign-o’-the-times is not a good one and the “new Zimbabwe” might not be turn out to be what we expected under the leadership of these “new men”.

Welcome to the new Zimbabwe!

[Tendai Nyatanga is the pseudonym of a Zimbabwe Guardian reporter in Harare.]

Labels: CENSORSHIP, MDC, MEDIA

posted by MrK @ 9:51 PM