ss=MsoBodyText style=”MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 6pt”>But the private media carried accurate reports on the main issues, including official corruption at Zisco, and dismissed as a damp squib the budget with its same weary predictions of better times just round the corner.
The Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ) said that false reports in the official media included news that a Chinese company was about to buy a major share-holding in Zisco (which the Chinese immediately denied); that South Africa had relaxed stringent visa requirements for Zimbabweans; and that private schools had lost their bid to increase fees.
The Herald, The Chronicle and the rest of the state media made no attempt to correct the Zisco-China story – which Spot FM had unblushingly claimed would make Zisco “the biggest steel manufacturer in Africa south of the Sahara.”
The handling of the South African visas story was just about as bad. Although The Herald did report the South African Embassy’s denial of its story about visa relaxations, it avoided explaining that it was Zimbabwe officials who made these claims. Instead, it maintained that it was the South African Defense Minister Mosioua Lekota, speaking at Victoria Falls, who had said visa requirements had been temporarily scrapped.
ZTV and Radio Zimbabwe ignored the South African denial.
Over the private school fees, a judge told the Association of Trust Schools (ATS) to exhaust all channels available under the Education Act before seeking court intervention. This, said the media monitors, showed up in The Herald as the ATS having “lost” its case.
Muckraker, columnist in the Zimbabwe Independent, noted that a “believe-it-at-your-own-risk” caveat would help Herald readers.
Among the other distortions picked up by the MMPZ was ZTV reporter Reuben Barwe using standard diplomatic etiquette – new ambassadors presenting credentials – to gloss over Zimbabwe’s isolation. “He deceitfully interpreted the normal presentation of credentials to President Mugabe by incoming French and Kenyan ambassadors to mean that Zimbabwe still has many friends out there who recognise her strategic position on the African continent”, said the monitors.
The state media’s coverage of the 2007 national budget was the usual mix of blind endorsement of official policies; no reference to all the other optimistic forecasts which failed to materialize, and economic fantasy. ZBC, for example, hailed the budget as “aimed at … stabilising prices, enhancing economic growth and job creation.”
In contrast, the private media were unimpressed, dismissing Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa’s optimistic predictions and noting he had done nothing to solve the country’s myriad economic problems.
The Zimbabwe Independent described the budget as a “classic soap opera.” The Sunday Mirror quoted economists as saying the budget was a “damp squib,” and the new wider tax bands would provide only temporary relief for those with jobs because of hyperinflation.
New Zimbabwe.com noted that while Murerwa pinned his hopes on increased agricultural production, he preferred allocating funds to state security. It carried a statement by opposition MDC official Tendai Biti that the budget reflected “the mediocrity, dishonesty and bankruptcy of ideas of the Zanu (PF) regime.”