Succession Politics and Factional Journalism in Zimbabwe: A Case of The Chronicle in Zimbabwe

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper is a critical exploration of the emergence and manifestations of a phenomenon we refer to as “factional” or “succession” journalism within the state media in the context of the tussle over the succession of the late former Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe. Using the state-controlled Chronicle daily newspaper as a case study, we seek to examine the role and influence of editors and journalists in the negotiation of power in the context of reporting a contested succession of Mugabe in 2016. We locate “factional journalism” in the context of the capture of the state media by the ruling party and the virtual erosion of journalistic agency in the state media institutions. We argue that whereas the onset of the “Zimbabwe crisis” spawned the creation of different and polarised forms of journalism in the country (i.e. oppositional and patriotic journalism; see Ranger, 2005. “The rise of patriotic journalism in Zimbabwe and its possible implications”. Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture 2: 8–17; Chuma 2008. “Mediating the 2000 elections in Zimbabwe: competing journalisms in a society at the crossroads”. African Journalism Studies 29 (1): 22–41), within the “patriotic journalism” camp also emerged a new strand of “factional journalism” linked closely to the fierce contest for the succession of Robert Mugabe within Zanu PF. We also argue that the succession issue presented a poignant moment at which political journalism at the public media became subordinate to whichever faction held sway in the information/media portfolio in government, and which faction deployed its allocative powers to reward and punish specific forms of political reporting. We apply a limited qualitative content analysis of news stories on the succession issue and complement this with qualitative in-depth interviews with journalists reporting on the subject. This approach arguably provides a much more holistic picture of the factors at play in the production of political content on the subject.