Staff Reporter
The Government has lambasted NewsDay for disseminating falsehoods following an article which they published yesterday entitled, ‘Zanu PF ropes in Moza militia’.
In a statement, the Deputy Chief Secretary for Presidential Communications, George Charamba castigated NewsDay stating that the falsehoods published by NewsDay were meant to intensify political temperatures as the nation draws closer to the 2023 Harmonized General Elections slated for next month.
“The front-page article, ‘Zanu PF ropes in Moza militia’, in today`s (yesterday) issue of NewsDay, passes for reckless, malicious, offensive and provocative yellow journalism which Zimbabwe is best without. Timed to raise political temperatures in the country as we prepare for harmonized elections, and to deliberately impugn our long-standing bilateral relations with the neighbouring sister Republic of Mozambique, this piece of brazen, fake news shows what becomes of journalism when a discredited publisher, backed by an unprofessional editorial team prefers political partisanship to media ethics,” said Charamba.
Charamba stated that article 61 of the constitution does not accept such publications of falsehoods.
“Nothing in Section 61 of our hallowed Constitution protects or condones the publishing of such reckless, politically motivated falsehoods.
“We thus hope and expect that the Zimbabwe Media Commission, ZMC, takes a clear and bold position against this flagrant abuse of media freedoms whose impact on national security, and on inter-state relations, are dire and injurious respectively,” said Charamba.
Charamba further stated that the use of the adverb “reportedly” in the article showed how unauthentic the matter was.
“That the article repeatedly and self-consciously used the adverb “reportedly” clearly shows deliberate, gratuitous malice, and a conscious decision to proceed to publish falsehoods regardless, as if to willfully spite rules of the craft,” said Charamba.
Meanwhile, Charamba specified that the Government demanded an immediate apology from the NewsDay regarding the publication.
“Government thus demands an immediate public apology from AMH, and an unconditional retraction of this offensive article by the newspaper concerned. Further, Government expects the apology and retraction to have the same prominence as the offending article.
“Failure to publicly apologize, and to retract as demanded and on terms outlined above, automatically invites the injured parties, who include Government, to pursue and seek redress through legal options which are available to them,” said Charamba.
The private media is on record for publishing falsehoods in an attempt to influence the regime change agenda. In 2020, the Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services, Monica Mutsvangwa while presenting a lecture on the media as a double-edged sword at the Zimbabwe National Defence University (ZNDU), said Zimbabwe had social tensions due to irresponsible reporting from some sections of the media. Minister Mutsvangwa further urged the media not to abuse its watchdog role to settle political scores or pursue agendas on behalf of its handlers.
