(Last Updated on February 6, 2016 by Editor)
ZIMBABWE – WE did not want to wade into the ongoing Twitter saga pitting Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo and others, but we are obliged to defend ourselves now that the frenzied tweets have sought to drag us into fights that are not ours or of our making.
We wish to state from the outset that we do not hold any brief for anyone, aspiring or perspiring for the Zanu-PF leadership. That is not our business.
We know there is one Zanu-PF President and First Secretary who also hapens to be the State President, and until he passes the baton to someone else he is the party and national principal.
We are also not in the business of sparring with politicians. Our province are news values. We do not make the news, we just report on events as they happen and try to make them relevant to our readers in line with our editorial policy.
We have said it before and we say it again: Journalism, to us, is as British writer George Orwell put it: Writing what someone does not want written with everything else qualifying for public relations.
And we are not in the business of assuaging the egos of politicians, PR is not our forte.
We thus take umbrage to Prof Moyo’s insinuation that non-Herald staffers have anything to do with the content of The Herald, in particular the scandalous assertion that Information, Media and Broadcasting Services permanent secretary Mr George Charamba is “using” The Herald to attack Prof Moyo.
The Herald has its own staff who daily convene editorial meetings to decide what goes into the paper.
At no time have we ever hosted Mr Charamba in our diary meetings, let alone Prof Moyo who was information minister on two occasions.
To this end, we respectfully ask Prof Moyo to leave us out of his fights with his enemies, perceived or otherwise.
The real fight we would want to be drawn into is a fight to improve the livelihoods of the people, many of whom are waiting on Zanu-PF to deliver on its progressive manifesto for which they invested so much trust in the 2013 harmonised elections.
We can bet our last dollar that the generality of Zimbabweans would love to see their leaders working as a team to deliver on the progressive goals of Zim-Asset rather than casting aspersions on each other for the amusement of social media followers.
For the record, Government has 30 ministers, and none of them have problems with The Herald, the paper of record and purveyor of Government policy. And the reason is simple: they have not made themselves the news.
We are sure Prof Moyo, have consumed some tomes in his time, is aware of Newton’s Third Law of Motion that holds that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. When he takes to Twitter to attack others, they will naturally respond, and when they do we have a duty to report on it no matter how unpalatable it may be to him.
To us the national interest is supreme and our publics are our readers and advertisers.
We defer to the National Flag, the national and public interest, which are our markers.
We owe it to our readers who part with their hard-earned dollars daily for information on developments.
We hope Prof Moyo corrects his scandalous assertions at the earliest opportunity.