Munyaradzi wekwaChivi
I am not an expert on media nor on regulations when it comes to that so I do not proffer expert opinions but those formed from personal observations.
For long, we have been inundated with words from the media like ‘regime’ to refer to the government of Zimbabwe.
While I hold that people have a democratic right to hold any views and share them anyhow, I have a problem with not respecting the democracy that allows such democratic views.
The word regime itself is not bad at all for it simply means government in power.
However, its use is actually associated with connotations of military dictatorship which is far from our situation in Zimbabwe.
Now, why would one be so fond of using words coloured with slurs in them to refer to a Government that has consistently held elections since 1980 at the dawn of Independence?
This is what calls for thinkers to think.
America successfully uses media and film to depict unfavorable foreign leaders, nations and persons as a threat to America that it must remove.
They take time to desensitise their people about that nation or person and depict them as villains out to get America and therefore America must defend itself from the coming evil.
The American public is psyched up to believe that the other people are villains and America heroes.
For long during the Cold War, Russians were villains, currently Chinese and Arabs are the villains.
Before that, it was black people against white people. All this was to promote a certain narrative.
When America placed sanctions on Zimbabwe, they used the term: “Zimbabwe is and remains a danger to American foreign interests.”
I will not be labour myself with what these American foreign interests are but I will point out something; this is when the word ‘regime’ in association with Government of Zimbabwe came into play.
So why would the Zombabwean press fall for an American agenda to be desensitised against their Government?
Simple; regime change is the goal of the sanctions and it needed regime change agents and none have been more useful at that the Press and the opposition who have been promoting that agenda.
So Zimbabwe had to be demonised.
The land reform was called a land grab, investors had to fear loss of their properties so the terms like respect of property rights was thrown into the mix.
To make it convincing, there had to be abuse of human rights in there too and make Zimbabwe sound like a dictatorship.
Never mind that there had been elections in which their preferred candidate had lost and has continued to lose much to their chagrin.
Our media instead of taking a pro-Zimbabwe stance has actually joined the anti-Zimbabwe crusade.
Press freedom must never be abused to mean attack country and all government institutions.
The American press always stands with the American or State Police even when they have committed heinous acts like dropping bombs on civilians, murdering black a black man in front of his children.
It doesn’t matter what they have done, the American press understands the importance of their military in maintaining their security.
They do not attack attack deployment of the military or police as happens in Zimbabwe. We have a very dangerous media which assumes that being independent media means being against the Government.
The thrust of the media is not to be for and against but to inform and promote the national narrative. There is useless and unnecessary news like man bitten by dog, they don’t inform anything, this is normal.
They think promoting a certain political candidate, political narrative and misleading the public against sanctions is exercising true press freedom.
We have people who have sold their souls to promote an evil anti-Zimbabwe agenda and one wonders which Zimbabwe they want to leave their children. Zimbabwe is the only country we have, as King Lobengula said, “Defend this land, or birds will rule it.”
It is my considered view that there has to be either be a self-regulating mechanism, or the authorities must move in to censor some information published.
Ethics which must guide journalism are known and unfortunately ignored and violated.
Since this has become the case, it becomes incumbent upon those that create rules and regulations to formulate legislation that governs operations of the media.
This is our country, the only one we have, it is our responsibility to defend it!
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