State media blames business sector

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By Our Correspondent
HARARE – Using its well-tried technique of turning cause and effect on its head, the state-run media reported the continuing spate of price increases as if businesses were to blame, instead of pinning consumers’ misery on the root cause – hyperinflation.
The Herald, for example, reported approvingly and unquestioningly on the regime’s planned enforcement of a price controls, with no mention of course that previous attempts had simply resulted in acute commodity shortages.
Spot FM, another regime mouthpiece, blandly reported the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe (CCZ) saying that the cost of a “family basket” rose from $96 000 in August to $112 000 in September. There was no testing of this against soaring prices.
“Instead, it just reported CCZ as planning to introduce a new ‘Tsaona Basket’ (Crisis Basket) that would contain fewer products a family of six would need monthly for basic survival without quizzing the logic of the move or explaining how it would translate into bringing food to the tables of the consumers,” the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ) said in its report covering Oct. 2 – Oct. 8.
To add to the distortion, the state press generally portrayed the authorities as “championing the cause of the consumers in the face of profiteering by businesses,” the monitors added.
However, in a rare display of openness The Herald and The Chronicle reported the Parliamentary Legal Committee on Budget and Finance expressing concern over the worsening economic problems, saying the authorities had failed to curb inflation, and that they “just narrated the woes besetting the country … without proferring solutions.”
The private media, in contrast, blamed the distress on the regime’s policies. The Gazette, The Zimbabwe Independent and The Standard all reported another key development: a sudden plunge in the value of the local currency by nearly 100 percent against international currencies, triggering more price increases.
State media ignored this: but ZTV in its Financial Highlights went one better and misled its audience. “The Zimbabwe dollar against key currencies on the official market,” it said, adding “no notable changes were recorded in most key currencies as low volume exports failed to move the greenback above the $250 mark.”
Censorship by the state media characterised continuing coverage of the case of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Union (ZCTU) leaders beaten up in police cells after attempting to demonstrate. Not a single state mouthpiece reported court criticism of the police’s failure to investigate the brutal assaults.
However, the private media, including Studio 7, New Zimbabwe.com, The Financial Gazette and Zimdaily reported magistrate William Bhila criticizing the police for failing to produce a report he had ordered three weeks earlier on the beatings. Instead, the police produced affidavits saying they had used “minimum force.” The magistrate deferred the case and ordered the Criminal Investigations Department to investigate.
No mention either in the state media of the report by the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights saying the trade unionists’ injuries were consistent with torture and brutal beatings.
Similarly censored were the arrests of university students and teachers’ union leaders and the eviction and demolition of Porta Farm settlers’ homes.
MMPZ was critical of the coverage of the disputed Chikomba and Rushinga by-elections by both the state and private media. The state media simply covered Zanu (PF) approvingly, while the private showed sparse interest, devoting just 10 stories to the elections.