Media and Democracy: Can the News Media Rightfully Claim Its Role as the Fourth Estate in Zimbabwe Politics?

This qualitative study explores the role played by the news media in Zimbabwe during a decade of crisis stretching from 2000 to 2010. This period is marked by political, economic and social collapse, forcing a third of Zimbabwe’s productive workforce into the diaspora. The media, during the period under study, became mouthpieces of political protagonists, with the state-controlled The Herald speaking for the ruling party and government and the independently owned The Daily News for the opposition. To get novel insights into the role of the media during this period we purposively selected interviewees from the state-owned The Herald and the privately owned newspaper The Daily News. We used in-depth interviews with identified journalists and editors who worked for these entities for varying periods during this decade. The two newspapers offer interesting disparate dynamics as they advanced contrasting narratives, with The Herald producing pro-establishment and anti-Western narrative, and The Daily News offering a platform to pro-opposition and anti-establishment voices. This study found the media failed to play the watchdog role and instead became lapdogs to either of the warring political factions in Zimbabwe’s complex politics. The Herald saw itself as a state mouthpiece and in its characterisation viewed the opposition formations as anti-reformist and retrogressive while The Daily News viewed the state as a repressive organ in need of democratisation and transformation. The study broadens agenda-setting, watchdog and adversarial roles of the news media in a politically turbulent historic epoch in Zimbabwe.