Mirror journalists reap financial windfall

Mirror journalists reap financial windfall

• Journalist quits Mirror over harassment

• CIO fails to pay Mirror journalists, again

• CIO suspends Daily Mirror journalists

• CIO fails to pay Mirror salaries

• Mandaza's return to Mirror shortlived

• CIO to launch daily newspaper - source

• Gubbay bounces back to head Mirror panel

• Wallace Chuma: The real Ibbo Mandaza

• Mediagate: beyond Ibbo Mandaza

• CIO grills Mandaza over Murambatsvina

• Mandaza: CIO robbed me of my paper

• Defiant Mandaza takes fight to High Court

• Independent wary of CIO media infiltrators

• Mandaza suspended from Mirror

• Journalists targeted in CIOGATE

• Mandaza fires Mirror board

• Mandaza admits to CIO ownership

• Hollow tales full of sound and fury

• Parliament probes Mediagate

• Media scandal deepens

• CIOGATE: Mandaza muzzled

• Panic as Zim rocked by media scandal

• Newspapers sell their souls for survival

• Scandal rocks Zim media industry

By Staff Reporter

ZIMBABWE Mirror Newspapers Group journalists and staff reaped a financial windfall this week after state agents awarded them a 200 percent to pacify them after becoming increasingly disgruntled due to failure to receive salaries.

Sources said a junior reporter at the Mirror now earns more than $ 24 million from about $8million and bureau chiefs more than $30 million.

The posts of bureau chiefs were created this year.

“Journalists and staff were granted a 200 percent pay rise. A similar percentage will be effected in July this year,” a journalist said Thursday.

Other journalists, however, remain sceptical.

“Some workers are happy, but others are skeptical. They are wondering whether the CIO would be able to sustain the payments,” added another journalist.

The Zimbabwe Mirror Newspaper Group was taken over by the country's Central Intelligence Organisation in a covert operation bankrolled using public funds.

Following the CIO take-over, the Mirror's new bosses have initiated a purge to get rid of staff perceived to be ligned to suspended founder and Editor in Chief, Ibbotson Day Mandaza.

Of late, the CIO has been struggling to pay workers – constantly turning to the Jewel Bank to be bailed out.

Failure to pay the workers was in part blamed on uncertainties over their controlled presence at the Mirror in view of a High Court order reinstating Mandaza.

A media observer said Friday: "While these payments will go a long way to help the Mirror's long suffering journalists, it's hard to find any other source of this money other than the Reserve Bank's overused printing plant."
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