FORMER Information Minister Jonathan Moyo “planted false stories” in the state-run Herald newspaper and harassed staffers who stood in his way, former editor Ray Mungoshi told US embassy officials, according to diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks on Friday.
The Zanu PF government used the Herald as a propaganda tool, with Moyo a constant thorn in the side of senior editors, Mungoshi told US embassy staff in an hour-long meeting on March 27, 2003, after he was sacked by Moyo.
Mungoshi was appointed editor of the state-run title in September 2000 only to be sacked by Moyo seven months later.
In the meeting, Mungoshi gave details of Moyo’s “active subversion” of his editorship by planting “false stories” and warned that the minister’s determination to run the newspaper would end up destroying the title.
Moyo called Mungoshi on an almost daily basis, usually at about 6AM in the morning. Mungoshi said these calls often lasted 30-45 minutes, and were often “angry diatribes about The Herald’s lack of support for the government”.
“Moyo also used these phone calls to tell Mungoshi what the next day’s editorial should be, or what he wanted to see on the first page,” according to the cable, one of thousands released by WikiLeaks on Friday.
Mungoshi said he tried without success to stand-up to Moyo’s interference, adding when the pressure became too much, “he would lie low for a week or two just to stop the early morning ranting.”
At one time, Mungoshi claimed, Moyo sent him a story alleging Econet Wireless founder, Strive Masiyiwa, was involved in illegal foreign currency dealings.
The Herald did not run the story after its own investigations found there was no basis for the claim. However, the incident appeared to have called time on Mungoshi’s tenure at the newspaper.
“That decision prompted a barrage of verbal abuse from Moyo, who apparently told Mungoshi that he had no right to question any stories (the Minister) wished to have published,” the cable says.
“Minister Moyo went directly to sub-editors and production staff to have stories placed in the paper after Mungoshi had approved an edition and ‘put it to bed’”.
Mungoshi said his relations with the minister had improved when he was named among three journalists to conduct President Robert Mugabe’s birthday interview -- itself an annual ritual “regarded as an honour for the most trusted and local journalists”.
However, barely three weeks after this apparent vote of confidence, Moyo demanded Mungoshi’s resignation.
Mungoshi refused to quit and Moyo promptly fired him along with his colleague at the Sunday Mail, Funny Mushava.
“Minister Moyo replaced both editors with men known to be sympathetic to (his) desire to use the government-owned media as a blatant propaganda instrument,” Mungoshi told the US officials.
Mungoshi claimed he declined requests by foreign media organisations to speak about his experiences as his lawyers were then “engineering the largest possible severance deal from Zimpapers”.
On Friday, Moyo, now MP for Tsholotsho North (Zanu PF), hit back at Mungoshi calling him “incompetent”, the reason he said, he fired him.
"I have a lot of respect for Tommy Sithole but I never understood, even to this day, why he promoted that fellow. He was incompetent. End of story," Moyo blasted.
Moyo also rejected accusations that he used sub-editors and production staff to smuggle stories into the paper, stating: "Mungoshi will not produce anyone to back this up because it's a decadent, blatant lie -- the kind that people tell when they are campaigning for American visas."