Race for Chronicle top job gets dirty

Race for Chronicle top job gets dirty

MATONGA

• Matonga lays down the law to Zimpapers editors

• Reuben Barwe just the guy for SABC

• Chronicle editor fired by Zimpapers

• Charamba rings changes at ZBH

• Charamba summons Chronicle editor to Harare

• Chronicle, Herald accused of 'zealous advocacy' for Moyo

• Moyo's hand feared as Chronicle journos sent on leave

• Mother of Moyo's 'secret child' disappears

• Power FM DJ Mugadza flees jail

• Newsnest: 'We're not broke'

• ZUJ demands end to Herald strike

• Sex scandal rocks Herald House

By Staff Reporter

A VICIOUS power struggle has ensued at the State-controllled Chronicle newspaper, with a substantive new editor due.

In separate interviews with New Zimbabwe.com at the weekend, several journalists at the Bulawayo-based paper spoke of a campaign to undermine the paper's acting editor Paul Mlambo.

The Chronicle editor Stephen Ndlovu was given the chop last February, days after the government expelled his godfather, the former Information Minister Jonathan Moyo.

Although Ndlovu, recruited from the Sunday Mail in Harare and posted to Bulawayo, is no longer employed at Zimpapers, it has emerged he still regularly visits the Chronicle offices and at one time disrupted a morning diary conference where desk editors discuss the day's main news stories.

Only last week, Ndlovu turned up at the Chronicle and asked Mlambo to release his company-issued vehicle for his personal use. Mlambo obliged, according to sources, after Ndlovu told him he was still a Chronicle staffer until his severence package was released. The package is thought to run into several hundreds of millions.

"The paradox of this whole situation is that while Ndlovu might have made a lot of enemies in Zanu PF with his blind support for Jonathan Moyo, he is a very close acquaintance of the new Deputy Minister of Information, Bright Matonga, and Mlambo is aware of that," a source at the paper said.

Ndlovu and Matonga were once both employed by Zimpapers in Harare.

"What we now have is a culture of bullying inside the Chronicle which is cultivated from outside. The newsroom is split in half," said a source at the paper. "On one side there are reporters who want continuity, which means Mlambo gets the post, and there are those journalists brought to the Chronicle by Ndlovu from Harare and elsewhere who want the next editor to also come from outside the Chronicle. The second group is using under-hand tactics, from blackmail to daylight sabotage."

Among some of the tactics being used to sabotage Mlambo's chances, New Zimbabwe.com was told, was an unofficial go slow by some journalists, some of them desk editors.

"Recently, the features editor Kama Phiri was asked to explain why he was not writing and he just walked out of conference, and a few weeks before that Ndlovu came and called him in the middle of conference and he again walked out.

"Then there is the senior journalist Salatiel Mutasa who has armtwisted Mlambo to give him sick leave in April...for an accident that happened in January when he crashed a company car during a drinking binge. It's out of control," a journalist told this website.

When Matonga visited Bulawayo recently, another journalist recruited by Ndlovu, Elliot Siamonga, despite being on sick leave, managed to make it to a cocktail reception at the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair where he told Matonga of rampant tribalism at the paper, alleging journalists from the Shona tribe were being marginalised.

When the journalists alleged to be at the forefront of decampaigning Mlambo are writing stories, according to sources, the stories are of poor quality and through a combination of factors find their way into the paper.

"Sports reporter Fanuel Viriri recently wrote a story that was littered with errors from paragraph one to paragraph 28. In the absence of the sports editor who was on forced leave, the story was fast tracked into the paper. The first call Mlambo got the next day was from Matonga, accusing him of sleeping on duty," another journalist added.

Media sources in Zimbabwe say Herald journalist Itai Musengeyi is heavily tipped to take over from Mlambo, a decision that might prove highly unpopular with senior Chronicle staffers.

Addressing journalists in Bulawayo last month, Matonga insisted no journalists would lose their jobs, but he did not rule out changes at the top. A conciliatory Matonga added: "This is a new era. We want to build bridges between the private and the public media."
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