AFRICANEWS

Zimbabwe

Corruption creeps into Zimbabwe's media

For years the press in Zimbabwe was a firm crusader against corruption both in government and private sector circles. However, recent arrests of journalists for soliciting bribes have turned the spotlight on the media.

Currently, Zimbabwean media is embattled with revelations of bribery cases involving state owned Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) TV and Radio bosses, broadcasters as well as electronic and print journalists. The lot are said to have demanded monetary and gifts and kick-backs from journalists whom they second to state sponsored foreign trips. Bribes have also been demanded from business executives, politicians and musicians, who in return will be given sustained and positive media coverage, continous air play and better ratings on the local music and business charts. At the same time, it has been claimed that editors have not shied from asking for sexual favours from junior female collegues in return for a permanent job. Such incidents have led to condemnation and call for legal action by the public against the journalists and disc-jokeys suspected to be seeped in the scandals which surfaced in January this year. It is understood that some of the scribes have already been suspended from work pending police investigations.

The turning of the spotlight on the media started in October 1999 when Phillip Magwaza, a prominent journalist working the weekly government owned newspaper The Sunday Mail was arrested together with a freelance journalist Richard Karichi for soliciting a bribe. The pair whose case is still pending in a Harare court, were apprehended in a sting operation for allegedly demanding for a bribe of Z$10000 (US$180) from a local restaurant owner in exchange for good publicity after the two had carried a series of damanging articles on the state of the restaurant. Within months more journalists were picked up and according to media watch groups in the country, at least eight cases have been recently been brought before the courts against these media practitioners. According to analysts, the trend of corruption in the press has mostly been in the sports, business, entertainment sections which have historically attracted good sponsorship, advertising and kick-backs.

� Reports have reached me of journalists accepting bribes from certain soccer administrators to write favourably about them and undermine those they are opposed to. Some sports journalists are said to have satellite dishes installed at their premises by soccer administrators who they write favourably about. This is highly unfortunate, and as a union we will have no mercy in dealing with the culprits if we get enough evidence, � warned Basildon Peta, the Secretary General of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists ( ZUJ). Henry Muradzikwa, Editor-In-Chief of the Zimbabwe Inter-News Agency (ZIANA) concurs with Peta that corruption has become a cancer in the country's media. � There is evidence of corruption and dubious activities among the journalism fratenity. Some of our colleagues have already been arraigned in our courts to answer charges of bribe taking and professional dishonesty,� says Muradzikwa. The Editor of the Weekly Sunday Mail, Funny Mushava, observes that some journalists have become so corrupt that it is impossible for them to be objective when writing their stories. � Some people are getting away with murder simply because they are connected to some journalists. This is just not acceptable in a profession which should be the eyes of the people and ears of the society,� he says. However, the union has yet to indicate what sort of action it will take to deal with its members who have been implicated in these corrupt deals.

A deluge of poor renumeration, unfavourable working conditions and non-existent fringe benefits have been blamed for the rise of corrupt tendencies among journalists. In a report produced last December by an anti-corruption workshop held in the country, it was stated that unless the above ills were addressed, corruption in the Zimbabwean media will continue and become entrenched. The document supported the crackdown on the corrupt elements so as to redeem the image of the media in the country so as to restore public confidence once more. It has been reported that the Zimbabwean public is glad that the media is investigating corruption and questioning itself on a number of issues with a view of taking punitive action againist fellow practitioners who may fall prey to the scourge. �Journalists should be open up to scrutiny as any other member of the public. When their turn comes up they must answer the call, � says Dr John Makumbe, Transparancy International- Zimbabwe Chairman and University of Zimbabwe political scientist. The country's journalists are critically aware of the implications that the alleged cases have done to the media so suggestions have been put forwards for the creation of a Zimbabwe Media Complaints Council. It is envisaged that when such Council becomes operational it will be able among other things reprimand or bar corrupt journalists from practicing anywhere in the Southern Africa .

But while the extent of corruption has yet to become clear, it is evident that the relationship between media corruption and the decaying politico-economic fabric is far much deeper than previously thought. Media experts are increasingly realizing that bribes and kick-backs are spreading rapidly under conditions of social chaos, poverty and political repression that have plagued Zimbabwe for much of the 1990s.

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