To question the "Official" truth

The newspaper article authored by the Harare Bureau was headlined, ‘Don’t hold Govt to ransom’, and appeared on page 2 of The Chronicle of 15 Mach 2007.

The article was based on the remarks made by the Reserve Bank Governor, Doctor Gideon Gono, on the occasion of his tour of Operation Maguta projects in Mashonaland East Province, on Tuesday, 13 March 2007.

The Governor was reported to have sounded a stern warning to tobacco farmers who had not heeded the invitation to bring their produce, tobacco, to the auction floors. This major foreign currency earner is sold in US dollars with the farmers being paid in local currency at the official exchange rate. The farmers appeared to have been on a trade boycott over the price they were being offered for their crop as well as the rate at which the Zimbabwean dollar was pegged against the US dollar. The Governor’s contention was that the tobacco had been raised through government support and so the growers should consider the national interest ahead of profiteering.

COMMENT

The event was newsworthy since it was about an activity and a commodity that is the mainstay of Zimbabwe's economy – namely farming and tobacco. However, the article seemed mainly concerned with presenting the governor’s point of view. Since the subject was of national concern, the readers would have benefited more from a balanced report that included the response of the tobacco farmers. A balanced presentation would have made the article more factually accurate and more informative to the readers. As it was the governor, who is a senior civil servant, could have been seeking political mileage for the government by placing the blame for the failure to deliver tobacco to the auction floors on the farmers who, according to him, had benefited from government subsidized inputs throughout the production of the tobacco.

The presentation of the article would have been different had the reporter taken the trouble to cross check the Governor’s claims with the explanation from the farmers’ representatives on their reasons for the alleged boycott. But it seems this was not to be, the paper had to give the "official" interpretation of reality.

This one-sided presentation could have been influenced by the fact that the Chronicle newspaper is government owned. Unfortunately, in a scenario where government is in disagreement with another party, newspaper editorial policy always tends to take the side of the owners of the paper. The same policy would constrain the reporter and the editor to deliberately exclude the views of the farmers who were most likely to challenge the assertions of the governor.

Instead of the Reserve bank governor’s remarks being the sole basis of the story, they should have only acted as a stimulus. The real story, which this reporter denies his/her readers, should have been on what the accused farmers had to say in their own defense. In this process, the story manipulates or "rigs" the readers’ opinion against the tobacco farmers. Public opinion may very likely have been swayed against them as a greedy, selfish and unpatriotic lot who want to benefit all the way.

The article appeared in a government owned paper whose journalists/reporters enjoy unlimited access to the diaries and itinerary of government officials. This privilege may not always be easily available to other newspapers. This monopoly over government information sources sometimes leads to the complacency of speech reporting and an attitude that what the paper has reported on could not be challenged since rival papers (such as the so called independent papers in this case) cannot always easily access the information on the activities of top government officials.

This comment questions the implicit argument that there can only be one truth and that that truth coincides with the official view. It calls for balanced reporting in articles to be published in national newspapers. To this end, reporters are encouraged to scrupulously cross check facts with the concerned parties before rushing to press. Finally, in a democracy is it not the duty of the press to provide a forum for the articulation of all the diverse shades of opinion and competing views and interests in society so that citizens can make informed decisions and judgments on issues that affect them?

By Elikana Shoko.
PgDip Student at MSU.

About the Blog

Welcome to this blog spot which seeks to provide an (Indaba) forum on Zimbabwe mediascapes. This is a group weblog started 3 March 2007, by the Post-Graduate Diploma in Media and Society Studies class at Midlands State University, Gweru in Zimbabwe as part of their Practical journalism course.

Its main aim is to provide a forum for critical reflexivity on the media practices in Zimbabwe, taking into account the prevailing legal, technological, political as well as economic environment within which the media operate in the country. Apart from presenting the class with an opportunity to participate in this frontier type medium, this blog hopes to attract incisive commentary on what is going wrong or right with our media from all its readers. It keeps in focus the question how and why are our scribes reporting the Zimbabwean 'reality' the way they do. Debate on this forum shall be unregulated and free from any form of prior censorship. So welcome aboard.