10-05-2022
By Stephen Sarkozy Chuma
Next month one of the country’s oldest daily publications, The Herald will turn 131 on 27 June.
For all its 131 years of existence, The Herald has learnt nothing about free, fair and credible ethics of journalism.
The way the newspaper reports on opposition officials particularly those from CCC, one will be forgiven to think The Herald is published at ZANU PF headquarters.
A Colonial Legacy
It is crystal clear that The Herald has learnt everything and forgotten nothing from its days as The Rhodesian Herald. A culture of planting hatred among citizens, misinformation, malinformation and misogyny underlines the publication’s reportage.
Simply put the publication has made negative framing CCC officials its daily business.
The Herald and Malinformation and Misinformation
Malinformation is giving information that is mearnt to tarnish someone’s image while misinformation means giving false information.
The Herald has perfected the art of the misinformation and malinformation!
Today the publication carried a story attacking CCC youth leader, Cecillia Chimbiri describing her as “uncouth”. True to form, they also misinformed the nation that Chimbiri was humilited at a youth symposium held yesterday in the capital.
Shockingly, the journalist who wrote the story turned a blind eye on the humiliation of ZANU PF youth leader, Taurai Kundishaya who was castigated by youths for calling for invasion of Hopewell Chin’ono’s goat farm.
This month marks exactly 2 years after Chimbiri, Joana Mamombe and Netsai Marova were abducted from police custody. The trio were only found days later, tortured, sexually abused and in bad state at Muchapondwa shops in Bindura South.
Since then, there has been a sustained attack by The Herald on the CCC trio.
In one of their stories, the publication had a screaming blue lie of a headline misinforming the nation that the trio said they were never abducted.
The Herald has already tried, sentenced and hanged Chimbiri, Mamombe and Marova even before conclusion of their trial by the courts of law.
Ideally public media should advance for protection of citizens’ rights but alas, The Herald condone abduction and torture.
It is now a misnomer to refer to The Herald and ZBC as public media because ZANU PF interests are not public interests.
The Herald is an antithesis responsible journalism!