Sanctioning an anti-sanctions campaign? Comparing the textuality of news reports in Zimbabwean Newspapers on the anti-sanctions campaigns in Zimbabwe’s first republic

Abstract

The paper analyses the discourse linguistic notion of 'objectivity' in 'hard' news reports on the two ZANU PF led Anti-Sanctions campaigns in Zimbabwe. In examining the campaigns, which occur in Zimbabwe's first republic and when Zimbabwe was still under the leadership of the now late President, Robert Gabriel Mugabe, the paper seeks to compare the textuality of 'hard' news reports from selected Zimbabwean newspapers by focusing on how language and linguistic resources are used evaluatively in manners that betray authorial attitudes in news reports on Mugabe and ZANU PF led Anti-Sanctions campaigns against 'sanctions'1 imposed on the country by the United States of America (USA) and the European Union (EU) in The Herald2 and Newsday3 specifically focusing on the manner in which the news reports uphold or flout the objectivity ideal as explicated through the ‘reporter voice’4 configuration and within Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). In 2017, Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa (Mugabe’s historically trusted lieutenant), ascended to the presidency through a military backed coup that ousted Zimbabwe’s monolithic leader, Robert Mugabe, who had been in power for 37 years. True to the ZANU PF historical way of doing things, Mnangagwa also went on a rampage accusing others, especially the West for their sanctions which he claimed were hurting ordinary people and the Zimbabwean economy. However, this paper only focused in the analysis of the Mugabe led campaigns. While ‘hard news’ articles must thus attempt to project an aura of objectivity, in comparison editorials/commentaries are meant to air opinions. However, this is not always the case as they often are loaded with attitudinal meanings – occurring as both inscribed and/or invoked authorial evaluations as well as attributed inscribed and/or invoked evaluations.