In most progressive societies, it has become an article of faith — and a presumption of regulatory policy — that a free market offers the best way to meet the public’s need for consumer products.
As far as media products are concerned the principal goal of any government that purports to have the public interest at heart should be to foster the development of a competitive, privately owned media.
So any system that purports to regulate market conduct should be evaluated in economic and democratic terms.
Most of the debate surrounding the legitimacy of Zimbabwe’s Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (Aippa) and the closure of The Daily News has focused thus far on the democratic impact of the regulatory framework created by Aippa.
For me, the reason why there are serious questions about the motives and legitimacy of the Zimbabwean government’s introduction of Aippa and the subsequent decision by its new regulatory arm, the Media and Information Commission, to deny The Daily News the right to publish in Zimbabwe, is that it simply does not make sense.
The closure of The Daily News does not translate into good sense for the Zimbabwean people, whether measured against a democratic or an economic standard.
Any regulatory regime that has had the effect, as this one has, of killing an industry cannot be said to be in the public interest.
Since the closure of The Daily News three weeks ago the government has effectively restored its monopoly in the media market. Now the only daily newspapers sold in the streets of Zimbabwe are state controlled. In the past three weeks these newspapers have increased their cover prices by almost 100% and this week an 80% increase on ad rates was announced.
The state’s business is booming.
On the other hand, advertising agents who hitherto earned commission from selling advertising in The Daily News have suffered massive cuts in revenues. As a reaction to these increases advertisers have cut media schedules drastically.
Advertisers and advertising agencies employ thousands of Zimbabweans. When their costs increase and their revenues fall this translates into a reduced income to their businesses and ultimately to their workers. All this takes place in the context of an economy in which inflation levels soar at above 500%.
But this is not the extent of the sickness. The Daily News provided an income to about 300 Zimbabweans. More than 1 000 vendors earned salaries and commission from selling the newspaper.
That income is no more.
In a country with almost 70% unemployment this is immoral.
It is the consequence of the actions of a government that for years has shown disregard for the interests of its people. It has unashamedly demonstrated that the sole purpose of its existence is to further the interests of a privileged few.
The government deliberately fosters destruction of Zimbwean industry. Of that there can be no doubt. One only has to look at the catastrophic results of the year 2000’s land reform programme to draw this conclusion. The only question that needs to be answered is who are the few who benefit from the actions of the Zanu-PF government?
Zimbabweans were advised by the sponsor of Aippa, the Ministry of State for Information and Publicity, that the legislation was in the public interest. The Media and Information Commission’s function, states the Act, is to ensure that Zimbabweans have “effective control of mass media services” and ” to enforce professional and ethical standards in the mass media”.
To my mind the most obvious means of delivering effective control to Zimbabweans and raising the standard of media products is by respecting consumer sovereignty, that is, allowing the market to decide what is good and what is not.
But then this would not work well as a strategy for a government that is completely self-interested and steeped in the habit of adopting highly paternalistic approaches to addressing the needs of its nation.
By this I mean that the Zimbabwean government would have people disregard the fact that The Daily News had met with the approval of consumers. It was the market leader.
The state-controlled products, on the other hand, had long suffered the sanction of market disapproval. As their propaganda line progressed beyond the realities of the majority of Zimbabweans, the state-controlled newspapers sold less and less in the streets of Zimbabwe. The state’s business interests suffered.
The Daily News, which was launched in March 1999, had in one year shattered the state’s monopoly, which had been consolidated over the 108 years in which Zimbabwe Newspapers Ltd, the state-controlled publisher, had been operating. After only three years of operation The Daily News had captured about 30% of market share.
The philosophy underlying the success of The Daily News was that consumers are sovereign and must be treated with respect. The story of Zimbabwe was told by The Daily News “like it is”. It was the people’s paper.
Not so for the state-controlled papers. As Zanu-PF faced increasing challenges to its rule after decades of misgovernment, it translated bad political philosophy to bad business philosophy and tightened control over the state media. It misguidedly thought that it could sell this to the Zimbabwean people. But as Zanu-PF now knows, propaganda does not sell. The market rejected the state papers. As the propaganda worsened, sales of the state-controlled papers plummeted, while those of The Daily News increased. Consumers gave their verdict.
The government’s business and political interests were seriously threatened by The Daily News.
How else could the establishment have hoped to survive but to invent a piece of legislation that would restore the state’s monopoly over the media? The lawless attempts to stop The Daily News — bombings, destruction of newspapers — had failed.
The state achieved by legislative fiat what it could not achieve on an even playing field. And there is no doubt in my mind that the very concept of a level playing field is alien to the Zanu-PF government. Last year’s presidential election saga is a clear example of a ruling establishment that will make illegitimate use of the law to tilt the balance in its favour. It has done this before. It is skilled at the task.
And so I guess it may not come as a surprise if I point out that the Zanu-PF government is, in fact, in the position of being both the omnipotent regulator and self-interested player in the Zimbabwean media market. The Media and Information Commission, which purports to be an independent regulator of the media industry, in fact accounts to and is controlled by the Ministry of State for Information and Publicity. This ministry controls the state publishing interests in the remaining daily newspapers. Not only that, but the chairperson of the commission and the responsible minister maintain weekly opinion columns in these newspapers. Clearly those who purport to have the authority to regulate others in the market have openly declared themselves partisan. They have a vested interest in securing the monopoly.
The position that The Daily News finds itself in is the sum total of private interests and not the public interest, in the true tradition of partisan Zimbabwean public governance.
Gugulethu Moyo is the legal adviser to The Daily News.