US embassy implicated in the operation
Political Reporter
Al Jazeera Television Network reportedly came under intense pressure from its donors to hire local investigative journalists to spread its propaganda after the highly anticipated Gold Mafia exposé fizzled out.
This publication has learnt that the same television channel has partnered with Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) to recruit local investigative journalists who would continue to sustain the looting narrative.
A source who spoke to this publication said that MISA had been tasked by Al jazeera to recruit local investigative journalists from the private media to work on a project titled, ‘Gold Mafia Post Review’, which would be funded by the USA Embassy in Harare.
“MISA was tasked by Al jazeera to recruit local investigative journalists from the private media who would investigate companies and individuals mentioned in the Gold Mafia documentary in order to validate allegations and claims made in the documentary. The idea is to sustain the looting narrative being peddled by the West and the local opposition parties,” said the source.
The same source added that targeted journalists would be drawn from the Media Alliance of Zimbabwe (MAZ), Centre for Investigative Journalism Zimbabwe (CIJZ), Media Centre (MC) and the Journalism Students Network Zimbabwe (JSNZ).
According to the source, MISA had already identified independent journalist Hopewell Chin’ono, Alpha Media Holdings journalist, Blessed Mhlanga, Voice of America journalist, Godwin Mangudya and independent journalist Ezra Sibanda as potential journalists who would spearhead the project.
“To date, MISA has identified Chin’ono, Mhlanga, Mangudya and Sibanda to spearhead the Gold Mafia Post review project. These journalists would be expected to produce news articles that justify allegations raised in the Al jazeera documentary. However, the selected journalists would use pseudonyms for security reasons,” added the source.
The same source highlighted that the selection of the journalists was not accidental as those chosen were the ones who had previously worked with the US Embassy in its regime change agenda in Zimbabwe.
Political analyst, Terrence Chipwanya said that it was now evident that this year’s political playing field would not be even considering that a number of journalists would be on US Embassy payroll to vilify the Government by amplifying the looting narrative that has always been peddled by the local opposition parties.
Chipwanya added that the fact that the US Embassy was funding the Gold Mafia Post Review project was evidence that they funded the production of the original documentary.
Meanwhile, Chin’ono had earlier tried to convince Nelson Chamisa to capitalise on the Gold Mafia documentary for political gain. However, Chamisa reportedly refused arguing that his political steps should not be dictated by Chin’ono.
