Africa, Headlines, Human Rights

MEDIA-ZIMBABWE: A Nation of “Information Scavengers”

Wilson Johwa

BULAWAYO, Jun 11 2004 (IPS) - It’s time for mid-week prayers at the Methodist Church in Main Street. But, spiritual affairs may be the least important matter on the minds of those present. Instead, a lot of time appears to be taken up by more worldly concerns, especially the pursuit of the latest information.

Ears prick up, for instance, when someone mentions that the price of maize meal (the national staple food) has gone up, even though there’s been no mention of this in the newspaper.

And, interest heightens when someone else whispers the reason why a prominent businessman linked to the ruling party cannot get bail three months after his arrest for “externalizing” foreign currency. (The term “externalizing” refers to the process of circumventing the Zimbabwe Central Bank when converting Zimbabwe dollars into foreign currency. Officials have made going through the bank mandatory for conversions – this in a bid to stem the foreign currency shortages resulting from falling exports and economic mismanagement.)

It is the same everywhere. Across Zimbabwe at bars, during social events and at funerals, people huddle together to make crude political jokes, commiserate over economic woes – and exchange the latest news, collected from various sources.

The forced closure of the only independent daily newspaper, The Daily News, nine months ago and the state’s subsequent dominance of the media have given rise to less formal ways of passing on and receiving information.

In a list of 166 countries that are rated by media watchdog Reporters Without Borders for respect of press freedom, Zimbabwe occupies the 141st slot. The organisation has also described President Robert Mugabe as a “predator of press freedom”. In addition, Information Minister Jonathan Moyo was awarded the British-based Index on Censorship’s Golden Raspberry Award for “service to censorship” last year, for his role in pushing through restrictive press laws in Zimbabwe.

This week, another independent newspaper, the weekly Tribune, was shut down by the government-appointed licensing authority, for allegedly being improperly licensed.

All of this has prompted Zimbabweans to become “information scavengers” says media watcher Andrew Moyse: “They seek information even if it’s second-hand from wherever they can find it, particularly the independent weeklies and from their radios if they are near them.”

However, Moyse – who works as Project Coordinator at the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe – says this handful of weeklies doesn’t have the capacity to “rebut the daily tidal wave of propaganda emanating from the government-controlled media.” (The monitoring project scrutinises the local media for conformity to international standards of press freedom and professionalism.)

Ironically – and even as they try to source news elsewhere – Zimbabweans have also been buying more state-controlled newspapers than they did in the past.

Zimpapers, the government-controlled publishing company that owns the country’s only two daily newspapers and three weeklies, is forecasting pre-tax profits of about 300,000 U.S. dollars this year, a four-fold increase over last year’s profits.

“Indications are that profits will surge during the second half of the year,” group Chief Executive Justin Mutasa told shareholders during the company’s 77th annual general meeting earlier this month.

Relishing the prospect of a captive market, Zimpapers has set new circulation targets for its newspapers. Sales of the country’s biggest daily are projected to reach 120,000 copies by the end of the year, up from the current 95,000.

But, Moyse cautions that as much as readers may buy newspapers from the Zimpapers stable, this is not to say that they accept their content.

Banning The Daily News, while using the government-controlled media as “messengers of a crude propaganda campaign” for the ruling party and government, has created an extreme cynicism among ordinary Zimbabweans, he says.

“They are increasingly forced to rely on the government media for any information, but consciously and subconsciously take account of the bias contained in these media. Their content is deeply distrusted and is far from being accepted at face value.”

He says this is giving rise to a word-of-mouth culture in which information emanating from personal experiences is exchanged – along with news supplied by those who are still able to access electronic and foreign media sources, which often “tend to corroborate the news the public gleans from unofficial sources.”

In a country with unemployment of over 70 percent, satellite television is available only to the wealthy few. Radio broadcasts from the British Broadcasting Corporation, Voice of America and particularly the British-based SW Radio Africa, run by exiled Zimbabweans, appear to be growing in popularity – but only among those with short wave receivers.

Until recently, cyberspace offered some respite from the state’s media offerings.

However, it has now become the latest target of the government’s censorship drive. The state telecommunications monopoly, TelOne, has asked internet service providers (ISPs) to sign commercial contracts which ask them to spy on the e-mails of their clients for ” “objectionable, obscene (and) unauthorized” content.

ISPs are treading cautiously. “We are discussing with TelOne,” says the Chairman of the Zimbabwe Internet Service Providers Association, Shadreck Nkala. “At the moment we haven’t reached a stage of signing (the contract).”

Nonetheless, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change says its weekly information bulletins – sent by e-mail – are already being blocked, because the government seems to have acquired the technology to do so, possibly from China.

“We have reason to believe that our e-mail communication is being tampered with,” says party official Nkanyiso Maqeda.

Instead of MDC e-mails, subscribers and supporters are receiving blank messages telling them that selected mails have been barred for carrying “sensitive information.”