WILL I WRITE FOR THEM AGAIN...EVER?

I just had to write about what is going on in Zimbabwe. Aside: The newly appointed editor of the Chronicle, Makuwerere Bwititi phoned me two weeks ago, just barely a few seconds after he had taken the hot seat. He wondered whether I would revive my "On The Lighter Side Column" for his paper on Saturdays. My instinct was ask to see the colour of his money first. But then I thought: Let me ask him what had really changed at the Chronicle apart from a brief episode of musical chairs so typical when new Ministers of Information took over after a reshuffle.

Heads are know to roll and this time is no exception. Jokonya has replaced Jonathan (Moyo) and he is being touted as a liberal in as far as excessive media control is concerned. Him being a former diplomat and all that jazz. Personally I am yet to see a noticeable mellowing of sorts in the State Media apart from perhaps a dilution of the 100% local music content demanded during the Hondo Yeminda days.

The Chronicle is as rabid as ever. Writing for them would be endorsing the status quo and that would be against the best of my conscience. It is for similar reasons that I have constantly turned down overtures from SFM to revive Afro Jazz on Thursday show on radio. I would rue my show emerging after that steady stream of propaganda masquarading as news.

The Chronicle continues to issue blinkered opinion pieces and cliche infested political commentary passing off as journalism. Take for example Zimbabwe's long running fuel crisis. Nowhere do you see an article putting the powers that be to task about solutions to the problem. Instead, you read about 300 million litres of fuel "currently on the high seas" on its way to quench a patched and paralysed transport sector. Never mind the fact that Zimbabwe needs at least 2 million litres a day just to break even.

One cannot help but imagine a situation where that consignment is highjacked and diverted to Sri lanka as happened some years ago with a some shady amarments that were destined for the Indian Peninsula. They ended up in the gleeful hands of the Tigers of Tamil guerrilas who than proceeded to use them to good effect against the intended receipients! It would not be beyond the state media to cook up a story about the British fleet diverting those supplies to Papau new Guinea for all we know.

I also remember quite vividly MDC Secretary General Welshman KaNcube wondering why I was still broadcasting. adn't I heard of a thing called blacklisting? Not wanting to spent the rest of my life wondering in the confines of my garden unable to move anywhere, I promptly resigned. Never mind the fact that it would have been a matter of time before Jonathan Moyo and his cohorts forced the Hondo Yeminda diet of songs down my Jazz programme's line up.

My brief stint with the managerially-challenged but now banned "Weekly Times" at the beginning of the year should have firmly placed my name at the top of Mahoso's most wanted list. But no. Here are guys from the state media falling over themselves to get me back. I will post my diatribes from that brief era of protest journalism for you to make your own judgement.

I would rather be poor and insignificant, than be well known but revilled. Just ask Jonathan Moyo how he feels now. So the next time you ask me why I no longer write or broadcast...now you know.