Maravi

(TALKZIMBABWE) More newspapers, less news

More newspapers, less news
By: Nancy Lovedale
Sunday, June 6, 2010 2:36 pm

ANYONE who reads the news on Zimbabwe and how the media freedom mantra has been peddled by journalists working outside the country would have been shocked by how the news of new papers' registration came and passed.

You would have thought that such an event would spark some "revolution", but alas nothing much has changed, and I can bet you, nothing more will happen.

Zimbabwe is still Zimbabwe. Newspapers can only publish what is happening, although in the Zimbabwean situation we have seen some gross fabrication of what is really going on. You cannot tell lies for too long before the public hangs you.

Since the BBC was allowed into Zimbabwe, it looks like the propaganda has died. Even John Simpson, who used to get into the country "at the back of a van" and then walk the streets of Harare in broad daylight (as if he was not conspicuous) has lost interest since the BBC was allowed back in.

Haru Mutasa and Al Jazeera seem to have "died a natural death" in Zimbabwe. You would imagine that since they have all the tools to report and are allowed access to every nook and cranny, they will "nail" the Zimbabwean government. But no! No "mass graves" have been found in Chiadzwa as we were promised, even with the satellite photos that are capable with Google Maps with Street View.

Isn't that the irony of the Zimbabwean story? As soon as government stops responding to the propaganda, it dies down. Every country has "skeletons", even the much loved US and UK.

The embarassment we have seen lately with UK MPs and their expenses scandals, had it happened in Zimbabwe, would have made rich fodder for western media. The British call those exaggerated claims "scandals". They are just protecting their much claimed to be foolproof Westminster system of governance. Those scandals are nothing but theft. They are nothing but corruption. The British media can mask those scandals as much as they want, but if a man takes £45,000 from the fiscus and gives it to his gay lover, he is stealing; no more, no less.

What exactly new will NewsDay, or a daily Financial Gazette, or the publishers of The Daily News tell the world about Zimbabwe that Al Jazeera or BBC is failing to report? The worst has been said, and lied about. Even the caustic Mavamba/Dawn/Kusile spokesman, Denford Magora, who had become a popular blogger overnight has downed tools. Most other such bloggers have given up. The ones that always told the truth (no need to mention them) are still going strong.

As for the likes of SW Radio Africa, and their so-called journalists, ignorance is better spared. They are scrapping hard to find a bad story; even the match between Zimbabwe and Brazil - a historic event in itself - was cast in bad light.

As the MDC-T list of "outstanding issues" is getting smaller, we are not gettng a corresponding rise in pressure, or rhetoric, against sanctions from that camp. Was "media freedom" not a precondition for the MDC-T? Was the appointment of ambassadors, the media and other commissions, etc, not a precondition for calling for the lifting of illegal western sanctions?

Why are journalists not telling their version of the true Zimbabwean story, as they know it, now that "they are allowed to publish and report" or it was just convenient to repeat the tired, oft used phrase, "We are not allowed to broadcast from inside Zimbabwe!"?

The truth is that nothing new is happening in Zimbabwe, that did not happen when these papers were not publishing. Zimbabwe was, and still is, Zimbabwe. The people are still fun-loving and hard-working. Foreigners are still welcome in the country and the people are still as peaceful as ever.

Some of us used to get the shock at how The Daily News led by Geoffrey Nyarota at the time, was reporting. We were shocked, not only at how he could get away with such propaganda, but with the fact that he would "lie" about things that we were also seeing in the country. At one point, we bought the paper just to shock ourselves with the lies, and the hyperbole.

We wondered where and how he was getting that information, or whether we lived in the same country as him; and his journalists (who were gullible at the time and just looking to make a dime).

As a woman, I was very much interested in issues raised by by the likes of Tambu Kahari about how Nyarota treated women in newsrooms in the country. Tambu was labelled as a psycho for standing up for women's rights, and Nyarota chastised her at every given media opportunity (even though the man claims to be a democrat). For me, those were, and still are, the real issues, not some of the spurious propaganda they spread about Zimbabwe.

Some of us want to know how a man like Mutumwa Mawere made so much money, and owned so many companies, in Zimbabwe. Those are the real issues, not the lies about Chiadzwa, etc. Some of us want to know why Rio Tinto mines diamonds at Murowa without the Kimberley Process approval, and yet Canadile and Mbada (not owned by the West) cannot do so. Those are the real issues. We want to know how ACR got all those Chiadzwa mining claims, and why Andrew Cranswick now lives in Britain, a country so far away from Chiadzwa.

As we move into a "new era of publishing in Zimbabwe", as some would want to call it, we hope to see more responsible reportage.

Zimbabweans, fortunately, are no longer as gullible as they were in 1999-2008. They have been through a lot of trauma, but they have wised up as well. They can no longer be lied to by psychotic journalists who sing for their supper daily.

This new era of publishing is not lenient to media liars and cheats that we saw mushrooming around the time the MDC-T was founded.

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Nancy Lovedale writes from Beijing. She is an avid supporter of Dynamos FC and Arsenal FC and can be reached via nancy_lovedale@yahoo.com

Labels: INTERNATIONAL MEDIA, KIMBERLEY PROCESS, MEDIA, NANCY LOVEDALE, PROPAGANDA

posted by MrK @ 8:37 PM