A smack in the face

via A smack in the face – The Zimbabwean 25 February 2015

Mnangagwa also took the opportunity to prostrate himself before Grace Mugabe, as is standard practise in Zanu (PF) nowadays.

‘Corruption has been rampant in the private and public sector for years and the coming into politics of First Lady Dr Grace Mugabe allowed us a window of opportunity to see corruption which was being committed by the big fish,’ he said.

For him to hold up Grace – with her overseas shopping trips and her ill-gotten PhD – as a poster girl of the anti-corruption campaign is a smack in the face to all Zimbabweans.

Former Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, is in the news. The Herald carries a salacious article on his marriage to Elizabeth Macheka, a woman who seems to grow progressively paler with each published photograph.

The Zanu (PF) propaganda publication claims – as it always does – that it has audio tapes of a private exchange between Macheka and Tsvangirai. The first question that any reasonable person will want to ask about these phantom tapes is the legality of such recordings. If at all these recordings exist, is The Herald exempt from laws on privacy, or breaking and entering?

The people at Herald House, along with their principals, are adept at gathering recorded material on anyone who has been marked as an enemy of the state. But the only record that matters to us is this: 90% unemployment.

Now there is a record that any journalist worth his college certificate should bring under the spotlight. And by printing details of Tsvangirai’s private life, is that to say other politicians – say someone over 90 – is keeping the madam thoroughly pleased at home?

The job of a journalist is that of a social stenographer. A journalist is nothing, if he or she is not reporting on social issues that make a difference in the lives of citizens.