MEDIA-ZIMBABWE: Journalists Split Over Foreign Funding Of Media

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Lewis Machipisa

HARARE, Apr 11 2001 (IPS) - Zimbabwean journalists are split over plans by the government to limit foreign funding of the private media.

“We discourage as much as possible foreign ownership of newspapers, or ownership of newspapers by foreigners,” says Matthew Takaona, president of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ).

“This situation is not unique to Zimbabwe alone but is found in many countries throughout the world, including developed countries,” says Takaona who works for the state-controlled ‘Sunday Mail’ newspaper.

“In other countries, no foreigner is actually allowed to own anything more than five per cent in the media. So this is the position we take as a union. It’s not a situational position but it’s a position inherent in the unions,” Takaona adds.

His colleagues described the statement as “irresponsible” and “nonsensical”.

“The union is not a party to such a position. The statements are a figment of his imagination,” says Sydney Masamvu, a ZUJ executive committee member.

“His statements are nonsensical in so far as they fly in the face of the very essence of ZUJ which is to champion the welfare of journalists,” he says.

At the centre of the controversy is the private ‘Daily News’ newspaper whose printing presses were bombed on Jan 28 by unknown persons.

A staunch critic of the government and ruling party, the paper is accused of being used by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) to champion the interests of Zimbabwe’s former colonial power, Britain.

British government officials last week sought permission from the Zimbabwean Embassy in London to ship a new printing press for the ‘Daily News’, to replace the one bombed early this year.

Unconfirmed reports say top British officials will soon meet their Zimbabwean counterparts in a bid to get assurances that the new printing press will be allowed into the country.

Basildon Peta, ZUJ secretary general and editor of the private weekly, Financial Gazette, says the more investors, be it foreign or local, in the media industry, the more merrier for the scribes.

“Much as it would have been preferable to have Zimbabwean citizens owning or controlling the media here, we are not completely opposed to foreign investment in the media. The media in Zimbabwe is grossly under-funded,” says Peta.

Peta regrets that while he would want to see as many Zimbabweans as possible investing in the media there has been a tendency by the local private sector to shy away from investing in the media.

“They consider it as risky investment and some for political reasons. They think if they put their money in the media they will not enjoy the political patronage they are used to enjoying,” says Peta.

“What we want at the (end of) day is for our media institutions to be well capitalised and foreign investment becomes necessary,” he says.

The government last week passed a law allowing only local companies to invest in the country’s broadcasting industry.

Since independence in 1980, there has been no private broadcasting station in the country and Zimbabweans have relied on a state-run media.

Zimbabwe has two national dailies, six weeklies and a host of private monthly magazines.

Zimbabwe’s information ministry recently deported Joseph Winter of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and Uruguayan freelancer Mercedes Sayagues who writes for South Africa’s ‘Mail and Guardian’ newspaper.

Their expulsion follows on the heels of a bomb blast in Harare’s industrial areas of Southerton where the printing press of the Daily News is situated.

Instead of being united, Zimbabwean journalists are divided along those working in the private media and the public sector. “These differences are always exemplified by statements that are issued on the media in Zimbabwe,” says Peta.

“But what is necessary is for the media in Zimbabwe to realise that we are one. And were it not for pressure that the government exerts on the state media to ensure that its line of thinking is parroted without any reason, I think we would have been having a very progressive media sector in Zimbabwe,” says Peta.

Takaona agrees on the need for unity, but criticises private media journalists for looking down on their public media counterparts. “They think it’s wrong to have the public media. They think journalists working for the public media are inferior and therefore the public media must disappear.”

“All must be done to promote the existence of the public media and private media in Zimbabwe,” says Takaona.