Politicians must stand on their own two feet

By The NewsDay | Dec. 7, 2012 | 4 Min read

In this paper this week was a letter headlined: “Is NewsDay an MDC-T mouthpiece?”, in which the writer accused NewsDay of “rarely publishing letters that are critical of the MDC-T” and being “brand managers for the MDC-T”.

Opinion by Conway Tutani

He further accused the newspaper of having given itself “the unenviable role of defending not only (MDC-T leader) Morgan Tsvangirai’s sexual life, but also his glaring shortcomings”.

He continued: “The media, just like the unholy trinity of Arthur Mutambara, President Robert Mugabe and Tsvangirai, has ganged up against (MDC leader Welshman) Ncube”.

But a website reader of NewsDay, responding to a report in this paper the previous week that Tsvangirai had “ganged up” with Mugabe and Mutambara against Ncube, sees things completely differently. He accused the paper of “doing half-cooked and uncalled-for hatchet jobs on Tsvangirai purporting to be doing so on behalf of Ncube damaging his brand in the process.

Ncube does not need this at all, as he has shown time beyond number that he can take care of himself. What NewsDay is doing instead is making him come out as (one) who cannot stand on his own two feet . . . Do we see echoes of what Manheru and Mahoso try to do on behalf of Zanu PF damaging that party’s brand beyond redemption? . . . NewsDay should go back to where they started and employ that formula that made them a household name in such a short time. Their fame resides in the fact that they present factual reports without leanings and unnecessary embellishments . . . why change a winning formula for the unknown?”

So, where does the truth lie?

First, it needs to be corrected that NewsDay publishes letters and reports that are critical of all the leaders of the main political parties, but within bounds of legality, good taste and decency. Any regular reader of the paper knows that letters and reports attacking and praising Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Ncube have been published in this paper. Tsvangirai’s messy sex life was extensively reported and commented upon in this paper to the anger of some MDC-T supporters, but not a “full frontal” attack as done by Jonathan Moyo in a lurid way. You can still make a strong point without being coarse. This is in fulfillment of the newspaper’s seventh guiding principle that “NewsDay will be a paper for all Zimbabweans telling the story of their successes and failures as lessons for a better tomorrow”. From this, it can be inferred that attacks should not be excessive, obsessive or manic because none of these leaders is a devil incarnate; after all, they are now working together. And praises should not be fawning and sickening because none of them is a demi-god. Actually, nobody has all the answers, but if you are able to take corrective measures from criticism, then you will be a great leader. This is in contrast to some of our competitors in the media who give slanted news that one party is pure evil and the other completely holy, which is clearly not the case. It’s bad enough that the country is politically polarised without the media reinforcing this. While it’s a fact that a whole generation’s prospects have disappeared because of misgovernance, it’s crucial that information received by Zimbabweans not be so constantly provocative as to further divide a nation that needs, more than ever, to be united.

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Second, the ninth guiding principles of the paper is that “NewsDay will be independent of . . . the government of the day and all political parties . . .” In striving to steer that course, NewsDay might have been misconstrued as being pro such-and-such party and against others. That is why bitter rivals MDC-T and MDC see the paper as being against them and favouring the other. That NewsDay is being attacked from both sides means it is not overtly biased. After all, both MDCs are involved in a two-way fight: one against each other, and the other against Zanu PF. This is not to say that NewsDay does not make mistakes. But newspapers mustn’t fight proxy wars for politicians. Newspapers mustn’t box themselves into a corner as to jeopardise their credibility and threaten their very own survival. So, reports by journalists must be based on the situation as it is, not on the situation as politicians wish it were.

As for those politicians worried about real or perceived media bias, they ought to be reminded that Zanu PF won in 1980 despite negative coverage by the State media under the Rhodesian regime; that the “No” vote prevailed in the constitutional referendum in 2000 against a State media blitz for the “Yes” vote; that after that, then Information minister Jonathan Moyo fired several State media editors for “not campaigning enough” for Zanu PF and replaced them with his own favoured appointees, but this did not stem the electoral tide against Zanu PF; and that there was no independent daily newspaper in 2008, but Tsvangirai still won the first round of the presidential election against Mugabe. Newspapers can only do so much harm or so much good.

So, politicians should – and can indeed — stand on their own two feet.