Arrived at the Amsterdam Airport Schiphol on schedule. This whole place was once under the sea; very difficult to navigate.
Nevanji Madanhire
Where the airport stands today was a hell of a seaport, hence they called it schiphol which means ship’s hell.
Well, I am here to enjoy myself. I deserve it. I won a competition organized by the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Harare together with Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa) – Zimbabwe. Hivos got the money that got me here.
I wrote an essay on media diversity in which I averred that the only way to end polarisation in the Zimbabwean media was if the government and the side of the media is supports decide to publish the truth.
As far as I am concerned the Zimbabwe media is not polarised at all; the public media and the private media are just not two poles of the same ball. They belong to different planets. The private media is Venus while the public media is Mars. I will illustrate this with two examples.
First, remember the Epworth violence a few weeks ago? MDC’s Morgan Tsvangirai had addressed a rally and left when all hell broke loose. The public media — Zimpapers and the ZBC — reported that MDC-T thugs had started the violence and had battered dozens of Zanu PF supporters who had to seek treatment at several Harare hospitals.
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The private media — NewsDay and others — ran around the city looking for the victims of the violence. All they found were MDC-T supporters all the worse for wear. A Zanu PF spokesman said their supporters had all been treated and discharged but, no hospital had any record of this.
The public media did not even mention the MDC-T supporters admitted at Pari. Readers across the political divide were left wondering where the truth lay.
Second, remember Tsvangirai sneaking out of the Trauma Centre Hospital last week “to avoid paying his bill amounting to $2600”? The Herald had a beautiful graphic on its front page to illustrate Morgan’s movie-like escape.
The excitable management at the hospital called the media and rushed to report Tsvangirai to the police. But before the ink was dry on the docket, the bill had been paid.
According to the private media, Tsvangirai had sought to avoid the paparazzi milling outside the hospital, hence the inglorious exit.
But the reading public may never know the truth which, maybe, lies between the two positions.
One thing is clear, Tsvangirai should not have left the hospital without paying his bill, it’s standard practice unless a prior arrangement has been made. He could have waited until the bill was paid then slinked away.
But what could have been of more interest to the public was why his bill was so high considering he had been in the hospital for less than 48 hours and no surgery had been carried out. The story as far as the public is concerned was how health services were now way out of the poor’s reach.
But the public media went Martian seeking to kick Tsvangirai while he was down. The private media sought to protect him.
It’s just that the public media tell half truths most of the time while the private media publish the truth most of the time. The two are in different solar systems.
By the way, I came here to enjoy myself and not to be depressed! This evening I will sample Dutch beer. I will keep you posted.
