'Media hangman' bounces back!, as Mugabe announces new cabinet

The long wait is over as President Robert Mugabe announced a 26 member cabinet on Tuesday 11 September, 2013.

While such cabinet announcements should have brought joy and celebrations, President Mugabe's Tuesday announcement brought sorrow and mourning particularly to the journalism fraternity in Zimbabwe as political flip-flopper Professor Jonathan Moyo was appointed Minister of Media, Information and Broadcasting Services. For the media industry it is another five years of gnashing of teeth unless there is a cabinet reshuffle before the end of President Mugabe's term in 2018.

The appointment of Prof Moyo to the Media portfolio is akin to appoint "The Angel of Death" as an ambulance driver.  As I am writing this article thousands of Zimbabwean journalists are living in exile while others were rendered jobless during Prof Moyo's previous tenure at the media ministry.  Prof Moyo's previous tenure has been the worst era in the history of the media in Zimbabwe and to imagine that such a "trigger happy" character is back at the helm of the Media, Information and Broadcasting Services ministry brings a chill down every journalist's spine.  With this Zanu PF's own version of German's  Paul Joseph Goebbels heads are definitely going to roll!

Just like his previous tenure, we are certainly going to see many journalists at Zimpapers and ZBC losing their jobs as Prof Moyo embarks of a crusade of cleanse the entities of journalists perceived sympathetic to MDC or other political parties. And our fears are that, if Prof Moyo still carries his "media hangman" traits, many private newspapers are going to be shut down.  My prayers are now with all private media organizations.

While we were hoping that a new minister will bring in new ideas and possible open up the broadcasting industry, such hopes are all gone. With efforts having been to pry open Prof Moyo's crafted repressive legislative strangle-hold on the media he is back to defend his brain children. And for now as Zimbabweans we should expect to continue having the state owned ZBC TV stations as the two musketeers, Prof Moyo and his erstwhile colleague Dr Tafataona Mahoso are certainly not going to liberate the airwaves.

And as Zimbabweans we should expect to listen to more of the so-called pirate radio stations. And by the way the reasons we have radio stations like Studio 7, SW Africa, and VOP is the same reasons why we had similar radio stations in Mozambique during the liberation struggle. During the liberation struggle there were pirate radio stations that beamed signal into the country in an attempt to 'educate' the masses.

My only piece of advice to Prof Moyo is for him to open the waves and there will be no such pirate stations operating from outside Zimbabwe.

And believe you me we are going to see worse attacks on freedom of expression and media during Prof Moyo's tenure than there has been terrorist attacks by  rebels in Timbuktu (Mali), Al Shabaab in Somalia or Boko Haram in Nigeria.

While some journalists may have wishfully wanted to believe that Prof Moyo could have met Jesus Christ and seen the light during his time in the political wilderness he has already fired his warning salvo soon after his appointment. "You can only reform something that is deformed," he told journalists casting a dark shadow over any prospects of media reforms.
 
So let's all mourn as Prof Moyo's appointment marks the demise of the media industry in Zimbabwe.

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Andrew Mambondiyani can be contacted at amambondiyani@gmail.com