HOW many viewers, we wonder, tuned in to Tazzen Mandizvidza’s mind-numbing birthday interview with President Mugabe. It was journalism at its worst.
Mandizvidza failed to ask a single challenging question and instead asked Mugabe everything a politician in the spotlight would be delighted to answer.
One example will suffice: “The economic meltdown in the West shows ‘Looking East’ was the right policy in the first place.”
Not so much a question, more a grovelling statement. And the interview must have broken the record for how many times it is possible to say “Your Excellency” in one programme!
There was nothing on multiple farm ownership or why Iron Mask Farm is proving insufficient for its owner’s needs.
And the list of estates Mugabe rattled off as belonging to British interests must have been drawn up 30 years ago. Indeed, throughout the interview there appeared to be a certain cognitive dissonance as if the president was visiting from another planet. The claim that “we brought democracy here” (not the British) will have elicited a sceptical murmur of doubt from those who recall the State of Emergency that Mugabe kept in place until 1990.
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More than 700 passengers escaped unhurt when a Bulawayo-bound train collided with a herd of elephants, the Herald reported last Friday.
“Grateful passengers hailed the train driver as a hero after he calmly steered the locomotive, averting disaster.”
May we ask why our NRZ “hero” didn’t notice the herd of elephants on the line? The incident took place in broad daylight so they would have been clearly visible.
The train driver was “hailed” for “remaining calm” and “steering” the train to safety.
Did he have a choice? Were there other routes the train could have taken?
As it was, three elephants including a baby were killed because the train driver didn’t see them. A hero indeed.
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