But can a single picture be relied upon to tell a whole newspaper story?

By Paul Nyathi| State run Herald Newspaper has produced a picture of a youngish looking former First Lady Grace Mugabe flashing a V-sign the paper claims signifies “victory”.

The paper alleges that the picture circulated in social media circles on Monday. The paper cast out the coincidence of Mrs Mugabe’s victory celebration three days after the attempted assassination of President Emmerson Mnangagwa in Bulawayo.

Mnangagwa survived a bomb blast which has so far claimed two officially reported deaths and over forty injuries.

The picture was alleged to have been captured in Singapore where Grace and her husband Robert Mugabe are visiting a hospital after the 94 year old former president’s health deteriorated last week.

Mugabe has not made an official comment on the assassination attempts on his successor who took over power through a military assisted coup in November last year. Mugabe had ruled the country for 37 years at the time.

But can a single picture be relied upon to tell a whole newspaper story?

A picture is a frozen frame, and to prove that someone did something, evidence would require several frames to satisfy the claim. Evidence of this nature would require hundreds of frames since there are at least 25 frames per second in a standard motion video clip, ZimEye contends.

In this regard, if Grace Mugabe did throw a celebration party on the mere basis of the above picture, she did so for the duration of a fraction of a second: to be precise 1/25 seconds, as ZimEye reveals in this analysis. If she did celebrate, was she truly celebrating the bombing? Did the state journalist interview Mrs Mugabe and prove that this was the case?

Furthermore the picture is undated and no one has to date proved its date.

Notwithstanding, this was the state media’s rendition.