'Quite A Majority Of State Media Editors Are Opposition Supporters'
Former Herald Editor, Tichaona Zindoga claimed that the majority of his former colleagues at the state-controlled daily publication “were closet supporters of the opposition” MDC Alliance.
Zindoga made the remarks while speaking on SABC’s Media Monitors programme, which was hosted by Tendai Ndoro on Sunday.
He said editors and journalists at state media are conditioned to toe the government line as they fear losing their jobs if they do otherwise. Zindoga said:
It is almost a straitjacket working within an institution like this; you are conditioned and when you get in there, you know what you are supposed to do within the apparatus of the government.
Having the knowledge that this is state media, as an editor or journalist, you have to know that the majority of your job is to support the government of the day.
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I know a lot of colleagues within the establishment who were closet supporters of the opposition, quite a majority of them but they would write stories that will all the same please the government because they want to feed themselves and their families.
As editors too, we know that there are certain things that we might not agree with but had little choice in terms of determination as to whether that goes in or out.
Zindoga was dismissed from The Herald under unclear circumstances in 2019 just 10 months into the job.
His predecessor, Joram Nyathi had been fired for failing to publish a story on President Emmerson Mnangagwa on the paper’s front page.
