FOR too long, the independent media has given opposition leaders a free pass, which allowed some of them to act with absolute impunity across multiple fronts. This must end now. Among their many sins, opposition politicians must stop their cowardly and utterly contemptible habit of disowning their interviews whenever they face public backlash.
By baselessly crying foul and labeling stories which are outcomes of verified, recorded conversations as “misleading” or “a pack of lies”, as Nelson Chamisa and Job Sikhala respectively have done recently, opposition leaders not only insult the intelligence of the electorate, they also endanger press freedom. Enough is enough.
A leader’s word must absolutely be his or her bond. You can’t sit down with journalists and grant lengthy interviews; but when your exact words are published and provoke public backlash you suddenly develop amnesia — crassly claiming that you were “misquoted”, “misrepresented”, or that the interview never happened at all.
Following a candid interview that he happily did with the Daily News last week, Chamisa surprisingly took to social media to declare absurdly that the influential newspaper’s subsequent lead story was the alleged work of “editorial fiction … intended to inflict injury”. Yeah, right!
As pointed above, this is not an isolated incident. It is part of a cynical, recurring strategy by many opposition leaders to throw journalists under the bus when the political consequences of their own unfiltered words catch up with them. Let us be unequivocal about the sheer hypocrisy and stupidity of this tendency. These politicians willingly sit and deliver their talking points in front of dictaphones, fully aware that they are being recorded. But when their supporters or rivals react negatively to what they have said, they turn around and attempt to gaslight the nation by attacking the messenger.
It is wholly detestable that grown men (it’s never women), purporting to be alternative leaders of the nation behave with such a chronic lack of class and accountability. A true leader owns their words regardless of whether a particular statement proves unpopular with a section of their base. When a politician blames the media for printing what they actually said, they are not worthy of any respect. Especially when the supposed defence, that one was misquoted or misrepresented, holds absolutely no water in an era of digital recording. In almost every one of these instances we hold incontrovertible proof, as we do with regards to the Chamisa and Sikhala interviews.
So, when a leader goes on to brand such meticulously recorded truth as “editorial fiction” or “a pack of lies”, they are not just attacking journalists, they are willfully lying to all Zimbabweans.
The Daily News takes a very dim view of this escalating tendency. We will no longer sit idly by and watch as our credibility is sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. After all, journalists are among the bedrocks of a functioning democracy, providing necessary checks and balances. For the record, we do not fabricate stories. We reflect the reality of the political discourse as it is handed to us by the eager politicians themselves.
In that regard, going forward this newspaper will take all necessary and aggressive steps to protect its image, its journalistic integrity and our hard-working writers who bring the news to the public. We are drawing a line in the sand. This is not a threat, it is a promise. Among other things, we will expose lying politicians by publishing the raw transcripts, release the audio clips, and publicly shame these deceitful charlatans for what they truly are.