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Lawson Mabhena : Assistant News Editor

One of the world’s most famous poems comes from Indian lore. The poem — Blind Men and the Elephant — is a parable about six blind men who felt different parts of an elephant. The first touched the broad side of the largest living mammal and concluded it was like a wall. The second felt a tusk and said the elephant was like a spear.The third, its trunk and declared that the elephant was like a snake.

The fourth, its leg and likened it to a tree. The fifth and sixth, an ear and the tail — a fan and a rope, they pronounced respectively.

The six different interpretations of what an elephant looks like led to a long and heated argument. Reads the poem in part:

And so these men of Indostan

Disputed loud and long,

Each in his own opinion

Exceeding stiff and strong,

Though each was partly in the right,

And all were in the wrong!

The heavily polarised Zimbabwean media is like the six blind men.

Choosing to be blind, the media (newspapers in particular) see things differently depending on where they (want to) stand.

What’s up with disgruntled war veterans ever making the front page of privately-owned newspapers? Have they all of a sudden become heroes?

Christopher Mutsvangwa, who only yesterday was a “snake” after the private media felt his trunk, is now a “spear” after they moved to feel his formidable tusks.

Joice Mujuru who was all along a “tree” deep-rooted in the rot of Zanu-PF is now a “wall” standing firm against alleged misrule, after the ever-moving journos discovered her “broader” side.

Yesterday’s lead story on two daily newspapers is yet another case in point.

Time for Mugabe to go: Ian Khama, Mugabe too old to rule: Khama, screamed the Daily News and News Day respectively. The import: The embodiment of democracy – Botswana President Ian Khama – agrees with us (privately-owned media). This is obviously unsurprising; anyone who blasts Zanu-PF and President Mugabe is an icon to the two papers.

Only a few months ago Evan Mawarire was the darling of the private media. Anything that he said or did made headlines.

A stayaway by Government workers was attributed to Mawarire even though it was always as clear as broad daylight that the job action had nothing to do with him.

And when every other stayaway and protest he called for failed, Mawarire was painted as a victim.

Living to his true self, Mawarire eventually ditched the “struggle” for a bling life in America.

The private media have not licked their Mawarire wounds but have been jumping from new hero to new hero.

That is the problem with being blinded by hate. You have to see evil in your enemy and good in your enemy’s enemies. This is the predicament Daily News and NewsDay have to grapple with on a daily basis.

Ian Khama is no role model.

For politician, for president nor for African.

Khama just does not make the cut.

But criticising President Mugabe can wash away all sins.

The former pupil at White Stone School in Bulawayo has been ordained Saint by the private media who are ever desperate for a voice against President Mugabe and the ruling Zanu-PF.

At 63, Khama has never been married and this besides being a traditional chief who only abdicated the throne after being nominated as Vice-President.

He has been criticised by members of his own party for trying to undermine parliament. At one time he petitioned the court to change the voting process for electing a vice-president from secret ballot to a show of hands.

A certified pilot, he personally flies the presidential airplane on official trips. (Privately-owned media would have a field day if this was to happen in Zimbabwe.)

The icing on the cake is the Media Practitioners Law, put into effect by Khama’s administration.

A clear crackdown on free speech, the law claimed the scalp of journalist Outsa Mokone who was arrested in September 2014.

Since Khama is a hero to so-called independent media houses, maybe the Zanu-PF Government can import this law. A foreign head of state meddling in the affairs of a sovereign State, and the media celebrates. Khama’s law could definitely come in handy.

The American media — largely regarded as operating in the free world by our counterparts in opposition media — did not celebrate when President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines insulted President Barack Obama and his mother.

“President Obama has grown accustomed to having his foreign travels overshadowed by terrorist attacks or police shootings. This might be the first time one of his trips has been marred by bad manners,” wrote the New York Times on September 6.

The reinforcement of national identity and sovereignty are not left to government alone even in so-called democratic countries.

It is only in Zimbabwe where sovereignty is synonymous with the ruling party.

The media have to dig deep, very deep and justify the freedoms we enjoy.