Editorial Comment:  Facts are stubborn, Mr Nguni Mr Goodson Nguni

OVER the past few months several newspapers have gone under while the remaining ones, with the notable exception of The Herald and its sister papers in the Zimbabwe Newspapers stable, are barely able to keep their heads above the water.

This is not to say we do not feel the pinch.

We do, but are in much better shape than the competition.

While many are quick to blame the state of the media on the prevailing economic hardships, others have pointed to the content of the publications saying readers will be hard-pressed to part with their hard-earned money for poor content.

One media scholar we had occasion to speak to was quite explicit as he complemented us for striving to promote national discourse, he did not have kind words for the competition saying for the Daily News, the Mujuru cabal had title deeds to the front page while for NewsDay it was a sustained anti-Mugabe campaign that has seen the paper publish glaring falsehoods on a number of occasions.

Cases in point are the paper’s claims that President Mugabe had missed nine Cabinet meetings putting Government in limbo, then came the preoccupation with Gukurahundi that saw NewsDay go to the extent of calling for the exhumation of Dr Joshua Nkomo from the National Heroes Acre saying he had been slighted by President Mugabe’s re-telling of a colonial stereotype about Kalangas. It had to take a member of the Nkomo family to remind NewsDay that Dr Nkomo was not Kalanga but Sotho, and had never identified himself with tribe anyway hence the moniker Father Zimbabwe.

We felt it necessary to highlight these cases given the NewsDay’s recent fabrication that President Mugabe owes businessman Ray Kaukonde $30 million, despite the fact that impeccable sources pointed to the paper that Kaukonde had dismissed the reports as false.

Which reports, we have on good authority, emanated from one Goodson Nguni, leader of the Federation of Non-Governmental Organisations.

We exposed Nguni as the source of the falsehoods in yesterday’s edition and true to character, he went on to make even wilder allegations against Zimpapers’ editors and Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo.

We would have wanted to take Nguni on but we are wiser to the axiom, never wrestle with a pig in mud because the pig will be enjoying it.

Despite Nguni’s desperate fulminations, we stand by our story and challenge him to meet us in court if, as he claims, he had nothing to do with the NewsDay story.

We are ready for him.

As we report elsewhere in this issue, Mr Nguni yesterday convened a Press conference ostensibly to dismiss his association with the story but ended up kicking dust in a bid to divert attention from the issue at hand, his role in falsehoods that cast aspersions on the President.

In his wisdom or lack of it, Mr Nguni, chose to cast aspersions on Prof Moyo; and our editor in a bid to divert attention from the issue at hand, his being the source of the scandalous story that sought to besmirch the President.

We challenge him to address that issue rather than try to swing in the dark, like a punch drunk boxer, in the hope of landing a punch on imaginary enemies.

If anything is attacking Mr Nguni, it is facts, and as they say facts are stub- born.

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