Even a high school dropout could have spiked Moyo’s piece

By The NewsDay | Jul. 13, 2011 | 4 Min read

I am one of the many people in Zimbabwe who on odd occasions reads what Jonathan Moyo writes. For starters just like many Zimbabweans I consider Moyo, a villager not a professor. Even across the border in South Africa, senior politicians also seem to hold the notion Moyo is but harebrained. Lindiwe Zulu, a member […]

I am one of the many people in Zimbabwe who on odd occasions reads what Jonathan Moyo writes.

For starters just like many Zimbabweans I consider Moyo, a villager not a professor.

Even across the border in South Africa, senior politicians also seem to hold the notion Moyo is but harebrained.

Lindiwe Zulu, a member of South African President Jacob Zuma’s facilitation team to Zimbabwe’s Global Political Agreement (GPA), said their facilitation efforts in Zimbabwe would not be distracted by Moyo’s vitriolic attacks on President Zuma and his team.

This in itself is a polite way of saying President Zuma and his team will not listen to someone masquerading as a political analyst or commentator.

This week I laboured through Moyo’s article in The Sunday Mail (July 10-16) where as usual he was ranting with no substance. Moyo said “the private media as gone to the dogs”.

But I think “it is the dogs that have gone to the public media”. I can’t say “the public media has gone to the dogs” because there are still many respected journalists in the public media.

Before Moyo and other pseudo-political analysts and columnists, the public newspapers were respected and a source of information, education and entertainment. But musketeers from Zanu PF like Moyo et al are killing the public media.

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I don’t think The Sunday Mail published Moyo’s article basing its decision on substance, but because the editor could have been arm-twisted to do so.

Even a “high school dropout”, could have spiked the opinion because it lacked substance. To say Moyo was a (junior) minister in our government is an insult to all noble people who were ministers before and after him.

To say Moyo is a member of the Zanu PF politburo is an insult to the people who sit in the party’s supreme organ today.

To say Moyo is a professor is an affront to real professors who have helped to shape our world today.

If Moyo continues to write rubbish as he is doing today, it will be difficult to convince our children to become professors, for they will say:

“If attaining the level of a professor makes one become like Moyo, I would rather die a high school dropout.”

Moyo is a disgrace to academia.

I wonder what the institution which awarded Moyo his professorship is saying today. I could not help laughing when Moyo said:

“ . . . Morgan Richard Tsvangirai is not a fit and proper person to lead this country as head of State and government and Commander-in-chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces. No, no, no!”

Well, it is not for Moyo to decide who must lead the country. The people of Zimbabwe have the sole right to decide who must lead them as they did in 2008 when they voted for Tsvangirai.

I have to emphasise that I am a journalist and it pains me to read articles in which Moyo attacks fellow journalists left, right and centre because they criticised him.

To say private newspapers are manned by high school dropouts is the worst insult to the journalism fraternity in the country.

My question now is, is Constantine Chimakure (Zimbabwe Independent editor), a high school dropout? Is Nevanji Madanhire (The Standard editor) a high school dropout?

Is Brian Mangwende (NewsDay editor), a high school dropout? Well, the answer to all these questions is a big no!

So who are these dropouts Moyo is talking about? Moyo might be a “professor” (I say professor in quotes because I doubt his credibility), but that does not necessarily mean he is a professor of everything. He must leave journalism to journalists.

As I tried to make head or tail of what Moyo wrote in The Sunday Mail (July 10-16), I had to say to myself, even a student with only one hour at a journalism school could have written in one sentence what took Moyo nearly 10 000 words to do.

And Moyo’s piece could not find space even in the Sharpener (a newspaper by journalism students at Harare Polytechnic) and I wonder how it appeared in a national newspaper like The Sunday Mail. Where are the gatekeepers?

For Moyo to write about journalism ethics and unprofessionalism defies logic. The same nutty professor who in recent months has heightened attacks on President Zuma and Zulu is now saying the editor of the Zimbabwe Independent was unethical when he wrote

“. . . Given his political clout and support, Tsvangirai is indeed a threat to President Robert Mugabe, Zanu PF, Nyikayaramba and Moyo. Their political death is nigh”.

It beats me when Moyo, even though he claims to be educated, still wants to convince Zimbabweans that MDC wants to effect illegal regime change in Zimbabwe with the support of the private media.

MDC, just like any other political party, has been contesting in elections since 2000 and is it now taking part in an illegal regime change?

This mantra about regime change is now a tired story and in journalism we call it a cliché. Political parties are formed to change regimes, and that is the norm everywhere in the world; MDC is no exception.

And Moyo, as educated as he claims to be, must know that political parties are there to change regimes.