THE Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe (MMPZ) has accused the State broadcaster ZBC of failing to fulfil its mandate during the elections by devoting most of its time to campaigning for the ruling Zanu PF party.
In its statement on the performance of ZBC during the 2008 election campaign, MMPZ noted that for first time ZBC exposed Zimbabweans to a tidal wave of political advertising and programming from all political contestants in the two weeks leading up to Zimbabwe’s harmonised elections on 29 March.
Under the Sadc electoral guidelines to which Zimbabwe gave its assent, all contesting political parties are supposed to be given equal access to the State media.
“The many hours of advertising and party political broadcasts that briefly flooded the airwaves gave the impression that ZBC was adhering to local laws and regional guidelines governing the performance of the media during an election,” MMPZ said. “Fair, balanced and accurate reporting represent nothing less than basic international requirements of professional journalistic practice and adherence to these values form the benchmark of any media institution’s credibility.
“But the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation’s grossly partisan news coverage in favour of the ruling party in the campaign leading up to these elections has again demonstrated its total disdain for the public mandate it holds to provide a fair and credible news service to the people of Zimbabwe. In doing so it has continued to violate Zimbabwe’s broadcasting and electoral laws with impunity.”
The MMPZ monitored the output of ZBC’s news programmes during the recent election campaign and says its findings reveal “the severity of the broadcaster’s bias in favour of Zanu PF”.
“For example, of the nine hours and 20 minutes ZTV devoted to reporting the contesting parties’ election campaign activities in its main news bulletins (7am, 6pm and 8pm) between March 1, 2008 and the eve of Election Day (March 28), eight hours and 44 minutes (an incredible 93,%) provided favourable coverage of Zanu PF’s activities in 189 reports. The remaining
36 minutes (6,5%) were divided among the ruling party’s political opposition, including both factions of the MDC (31 reports), independent presidential candidate Simba Makoni (14 reports), and other minor political contestants (two reports).
“Although most of these 47 reports were a neutral or fair reflection of the event covered, ZTV allowed ruling party officials lengthy sound bites to discredit the opposition, often employing excessively offensive and inflammatory language to do so.”
The MMPZ said the country’s radio stations were regularly used as public notice boards for the ruling party, for example notifying their audiences of the dates and locations of Zanu PF rallies.
“In short, ZBC became the private broadcaster for the ruling party and government during the recent election campaign at the expense of all other political opinion. This represents an intolerable abuse of the national public broadcaster by the authorities and is compounded by the fact that ZBC continues to enjoy a total monopoly over all radio and television broadcasting in Zimbabwe, despite a Supreme Court judgment eight years ago declaring such a monopoly unconstitutional on the grounds that it interferes with Zimbabweans right to freedom of choice and expression,” the statement said.
It is the MMPZ’s view that one of the most important tasks of any new political dispensation that emerges as a result of the recent elections will be to reform the laws affecting the business of broadcasting in Zimbabwe — and all the media laws — and to demand that the national public broadcaster returns to its mandate to provide an impartial, fair and accurate news service to the people of Zimbabwe.
The MMPZ has been producing daily media updates of the local media output for the duration of the 2008 harmonized election campaign, and says it will continue to do so until at least after the announcement of the presidential election results.
Despite this report, there are indications that a shake-up looms at ZBC, with President Robert Mugabe’s press secretary, George Charamba, reportedly demanding the firing of senior management for allegedly not campaigning for the ruling Zanu PF party vigorously enough.
