Online Reporter
Gibson Nyikadzino
Zimpapers Politics Hub
This year’s World Press Freedom Day was commemorated on May 3 at a time “independent media” outlets are in a global crisis.
It is a crisis of originality and usefulness. The crisis also exposed a worldwide network of thousands of journalists who over the years worked to promote US interests in their home countries. These interests have been witnessed in various historical epochs; from traditional print and broadcasting media, to digital and online media platforms.
The world currently lives in greatest times of change in the history of media. From traditional mainstream media, digital technologies have fundamentally altered the nature and function of media in our society, reinventing age-old practices of public news gathering and information dissemination. Fake news, misinformation, disinformation, malinformation and deep fakes have emerged as greater threats to the usefulness of journalism.
However, this is also a time when the coming of US President Donald Trump to the White House for the second time exposed the myth about “independent media” following his executive order to pause funding of projects under United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head Elon Musk described it as a “viper’s nest of radical-left Marxists”.
This led to further proof that the USAID was for years not a neutral aid organisation, but a strategic tool of US hegemony, reinforcing global dominance. Individuals such as Noam Chomsky, John Perkins, Philip Agee, Julian Assange and Edward Snowden provided persuasive evidence that USAID has historically functioned as a clandestine tool of US foreign policy, intelligence activities and economic manipulation. At the centre of this, journalists working for “independent media” outlets, who in their home countries immensely helped the US to get negative perceptions on certain countries.
In Zimbabwe, journalists, “independent media” organisations and civic society groups have been affected by Trump’s decision. The decision has affected some professionally and also their human endeavours to commit to the welfare of their families, something that needs a quick adaptability at a time the media industry itself is finding it difficult to absorb talent.
Since the turn of the millennium, Zimbabwe received a barrage of criticism from Western governments, local ‘free speech advocates’ and libertarians who were incensed over Zimbabwe’s “lack of plural voices and democratic media environment”.
However, Zimbabwe knew what it was dealing with. It fought a psychological warfare and propaganda that was disguised as news which was churned by mercenary-minded journalists.
The state is today vindicated that its past and present decisions to fight the avalanche of propaganda done on behalf of the West by local journalists was not out of their volition, but were doing that at the service of the sponsor, USAID.
It was not only in Zimbabwe that USAID, as the choirmaster of US foreign policy orchestra, did harm to its national character and outlook. From inception, USAID has constantly besieged leftist governments, particularly in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
USAID played a significant role in the failed Colour Revolution, a pro-American uprising in Cuba in 2021. It organised the island’s musicians and activists into a revolutionary, anti-communist force by investing millions of dollars in their education and training. In Venezuela in 2019, too, a planned regime change agenda by USAID attempted to subvert the country’s democracy, including by funding self-declared president Juan Guaidó.
Through this organisation, the US spent billions to promote its interests through using “independent media and journalists” to demonise Zimbabwe, Venezuela, China, Russia, Cuba, and its other enemies, all in an attempt to curate people’s realities. Even the so-called “citizen journalists” have joined the bandwagon in demonising the national interest even without credibility in terms of distinguishing between what is and what is not ethical.
What happens next
A recent survey of 20 leading Belarusian “independent” media outlets found that a staggering 60 percent of their budgets were coming from Washington. The Director of Ukraine’s Institute for Mass Information, Oksana Romanyuk, revealed recently that almost 90 percent of the country’s media was bankrolled by USAID, spreading anti-Russia and Russophobia messages. In Zimbabwe, ‘independent media’ outlets have now confirmed that the executive order by President Trump made them face unexpected challenges as their work was sustained most by foreign aid.
Now that USAID lost its mandate to “spread democracy, establish independent media think tanks and media plurality”, it remains to be seen what happens to these “independent media” outlets from across the world. Will they remain ‘independent’ media?
This is evident that the framework for understanding the twenty-first century dynamics of the national and global media economy is highly complex and is a contested terrain to promote and shape public opinion and belief.
Now that the ‘independent’ media outlets that for years have been following money, committing to objectives that did not benefit their country, but instead promoted its isolation, in Zimbabwe’s case, public media should now step in boisterously.
It is now high time Zimbabwe’s public media organisations come to the fore to re-world and remake the communication and journalism sphere that has survived damaging narratives that have been created for over two decades against Zimbabwe.
The usefulness of Zimbabwe’s journalism fraternity should be seen by the promotion of national values, national interest, development and mobilising people for socio-economic transformation.
While harnessing the usefulness of traditional media is a priority, coopting social media platforms should also be seen as a greater recognition for such media spaces have become the main actor of human life in the 21st century.
In times like these, where changes in media sector are happening fast, statutory regulation is playing catch-up.
However, it should also be considered by the Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC) to deregister or not renew the accreditation of journalists who embark on unethical practices. Journalism has to be protected from internal misdeeds and external influences despite the tremendous changes it is going through.
It is this so-called independent media in Zimbabwe, for instance, which have seen ‘journalists’ engage in unethical practices that include extortion, intimidation of victims of their work and also engaging in commissariat work for commercial gain.
The curse of “citizen journalism” that has befallen the fraternity has seen some people change professions, hence muddying the waters through unethical behaviour. Where it is supposed to be an alternative, ‘independent’ media now resembles a cocktail of mostly that which is unpleasant in media practice.
