International journalists 'come with a story already written in their heads' says Charamba

The Ministry of Media, Information and Publicity is consulting with the leadership to come up with a position on international media correspondents who abuse the freedom of press extended to them by falsely portraying Zimbabwe as a country of violence and election controversies.

The ministry's secretary Mr George Charamba yesterday said double accreditation of institutions with local journalists in Zimbabwe were damaging the image of the country as some of them were not objective in their reportage.

Mr Charamba's comments come in the wake of a BBC news crew that the Zim state media claims  stage-managed political violence in Mbare, Harare.

"We have not yet arrived at a policy decision but we are still consulting with the leadership over the issue. But already the anomaly is evident to all of us that some journalists want to portray Zimbabwe as a country full of violence and election controversies," he said. "As a ministry we are wondering whether it helps this country at all to double accredit institutions that are already accredited here thereby exposing ourselves to parachute journalism. They come with a story already written in their heads."

Mr Charamba said while the March 16 referendum had gone well, Government had learnt key lessons from the double accreditation of foreign journalists

"The exercise gave us key lessons regarding the role of the international Press. Virtually everyone from outside Zimbabwe who asked to come for the event was admitted save for one case," he said.

"The particular Voice of America lady decided to fly into the country before we had responded to her request which was going to be positive anyway inspite of the fact that VOA plays host to Studio 7."

He said the journalist was impatient and flew into Zimbabwe without clearance.

"The ministry does not accredit journalists but because these are foreign guests, applicants are cleared working closely with security ministries to make sure in the process of clearing we do not end up undermining decisions of other arms of government.

The Zimbabwe Media Commission does not have the competence to identify who is allowed in the country or not. As such before clearing her we told her to go back to South Africa and she even tried contacting the Minister (Webster Shamu) but was told that was how applications are held," he said.

Mr Charamba said foreign journalists should come into Zimbabwe after getting clearance.

He said some organisations accredited to operate in Zimbabwe by way of correspondents or bureaux were not respecting their local structures.

"These organisations were seeking to cover Zimbabwe using their personnel who are accredited to another bureau like in South Africa, " he said.

"We have a bureau in SA overrunning the local bureau here and we all wondered why after hiring a dog these people still wanted to bark . . . we discovered a very disheartening anomaly where these outsiders sought not just to overrun their structures here but to cover not the country that you and me live in but the Zimbabwe in their head, namely a country of conflict and election unending controversies."

He said a BBC journalist on being accredited went straight to Harvest House and got briefings from senior MDC-T officials.

"The senior officials gave him the aspiring MP for Mbare and few of his hench people to visit Mbare. But we have a BBC correspondent resident here and since the Copac "Yes" campaigns started he never reported about violence in Zimbabwe," he said.

"But an outsider barely hours in the country suddenly sees violence galore. The group went to Mbare to provoke a situation by pasting posters which no one would see anywhere else in the country. This was not an inter-party referendum and it was unnecessary for political parties to put partisan posters since Copac was in charge."

He said the posters triggered a vigorous response from the residents who did not want them. "It was an issue of hygiene environmental care not political difference. Unfortunately they did not erase the actualities on the tape and while the BBC ran it for two or three times someone advised them that the conflict was not political and that is when they removed it."
Mr Charamba said another disturbing case involved an AFP reporter who raised false alarm that an MDC-T official had been abducted by armed people in Headlands. "Its a law and order story that was allowed to run without a police comment and the reporter is not resident in the country.

There are local AFP staffers who do not see the story until a person parachuted from South Africa comes and sees it. It runs in a way that damages Zimbabwe until police are approached as should have been in the first place and they are told that this was a man arrested by plain clothes detectives for assault."