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Wilf Mbanga’s anti-Zimbabwe tabloid, The Zimbabwean, breathed its last this past week. That’s not much to write home about. The Zimbabwean closed down recently due to funding constraints and poor revenue. That’s not much of news either given the performance of the economy in general. Moreover, many companies are barely managing to keep afloat, hence the massive lay-offs following a recent court ruling that employers could terminate employment contracts on three months’ notice.

What is emerging though is that despite calls for media diversity and opening up of the industry, newspaper publishing is not for exuberant gamblers. While in the past it was easy to blame the Zanu-PF Government for refusing to issue as many licences as possible, it turns out that not all those who eventually obtained such licences were able to start publishing.

The publishing industry is tough, the costs are too high. Spending power is very low and people use their little discretionary income to meet the basic necessities of life. Then there were those who were promised foreign funding by organisations pursuing a regime change agenda in Zimbabwe. Circumstances have since changed, donor fatigue set in and a realignment of loyalties emerged. Money is not forthcoming.

To a certain extent, that is salutary for the country. We have a problem with a media industry where a number of publications are funded by outsiders, just as we do with political parties. This tends to distort readers’ preferences as newspapers with clearly anti-Zimbabwe agendas can survive on foreign subsidies but very few readers.

Moreover, the foreign funding tends to undermine competition. Democracy and the spirit of transparency bids that each newspaper must stand on its own merits, not be propped up by outside forces whose agendas are often inimical to the aspirations and strivings of the majority of the people of Zimbabwe.

We have no doubt that, left to themselves, some newspapers currently on the market would not survive for more than six months.

But Wilf Mbanga gave us a worrisome epitaph on his paper’s death. This is what he said at The Zimbabwean’s funeral: “We also wish to record our grateful thanks to the many donors from many different nations who provided the monetary support for us to be able to produce a paper in an economy characterised by fear — where advertisers were too afraid to support us.”

Two things stand out: the paper was sponsored by outsiders with questionable agendas regarding Zimbabwe. This raises a lot of ethical issues regarding what the paper published. There was no way it could bite the finger that fed it. In other words, the paper could only publish what those sponsors wanted to hear: attacking every policy which sought to restore the dignity of black Zimbabweans fighting to take control of their God-given resources.

We say goodbye to bad rubbish. How do you run a newspapers dedicated solely to pleasing foreign interests and still respect yourself as a journalist of integrity? The second point is the assertion that the paper did not get local support because “advertisers were too afraid to support us”. This is an incomplete if not completely misleading statement. What were advertisers afraid of? Did they agree with your agenda?

How many newspapers currently make money on the local market out of daily attacks on Zanu-PF, President Mugabe and his family and every Government policy, but go unmolested? What was so special about Mbanga’s anti-Zimbabwean publication that it should be singled out if not its unmitigated falsehoods to please the donors “who provided monetary support”?

It is clear the newspaper did not have local support and therefore enjoyed the patronage of those who read only its electronic version. Zimbabweans did not want to be associated with its contents, hence there are few people mourning its death. That is the truth Mbanga should accept instead of looking for people to blame.

One bad apple out.