The 2000 election campaign in Zimbabwe was marked by serious violence. According to independent violence monitors there were more than 3,000 incidents, with the ruling party responsible in more than 90 per cent of these.116 Yet the government- controlled daily newspaper, the Herald, reported just 36 incidents - of which 33 were blamed on the opposition and only three on the ruling party. The pattern on monopoly state-owned radio and television was similar. At this stage it becomes legitimate to ask whether misreporting in fact becomes calculated to cause violence.
For example, the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation television reported the following story on 17 May of an incident in a Harare suburb:
One person was killed and property worth tens of thousands of dollars was destroyed by alleged MDC supporters as war veterans uncovered firearms they suspect belong to MDC.
The ZBC story quoted three war veterans (supporters of the ruling party) and one police officer. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was not quoted. One war veteran said:
A group of 700 MDC members came here and started attacking all the people that you see here. We are here for a purpose. We must be found protecting this place. There are people who have been injured from time to time by MDC members. So our presence here is to protect those who are injured including this area here.117
Three relevant facts were not included in the ZBC report:
- The person who was killed was an opposition supporter.
- The firearms were held legally for hunting purposes (according to police quoted in an independent newspaper).
- The premises where the clash took place had been used by war veterans to imprison and torture opposition supporters - a number of them faced criminal charges as a consequence.118
Thus the television report managed to convey precisely the opposite of what actually took place, even though the true facts of the incident were a clear matter of public record. Is this unprofessional or is it incitement to further violence against the opposition?
This was clearly a matter for the regulatory body - unfortunately there was none. There is no independent broadcasting regulator, while the Electoral Supervisory Commission had been marginalized through a series of late pre-election legal amendments. Thus there was no means of setting the record straight. Regulatory bodies, complaints procedures, rights of reply - all these are onerous and irritating for the media. But the example of Zimbabwe shows that the alternative may be worse.
