Saidi to the rescue of The Herald
April 13, 2009
Bill Saidi invited back to Herald
HARARE – Zimbabwe’s longest serving journalist and one of President Robert Mugabe’s most strident critics in the media has been called from retirement for the third time – this time to rescue the President’s most fanatical supporter, The Herald newspaper.
The Zimbabwe Times can reveal that veteran journalist William “Bill” Saidi (77) has been offered the job of deputy editor-in-chief of the flagship of State-run Zimbabwe Newspapers, The Herald.
The Herald has alienated thousands of once loyal readers over the years by constantly feeding them on a diet of propaganda, cover-up and denial of wrong-doing on the part of government. Company management watched in consternation as the circulation of the newspaper deteriorated from 165 000 copies sold per day in 2000 to the current print-run of a modest 15 000.
Saidi, a veteran newspaperman, with experience going back to The African Daily News under editor Nathan Shamuyarira before the newspaper was banned by the Rhodesia front government in 1963, saw service as senior journalist in Lusaka, Zambia. There he incurred the wrath of former President Kenneth Kaunda before he returned to Zimbabwe at independence. He was appointed assistant editor for a brief period on the Herald.
He was then promoted to the position of editor of The Sunday News in Bulawayo. His no-holds-barred kind of journalism brought his career at the government-owned weekly newspaper to an untimely end and the veteran journalist into retirement.
The launch of The Daily News in 1999 brought Saidi back into active journalism once more when editor-in-chief Geoffrey Nyarota took him on as assistant editor. By the time The Daily News was banned in 2003 Saidi had been appointed editor of the just launched Daily News on Sunday. With the demise of the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe titles in September 2003 Saidi went back into retirement once more. Publisher Trevor Ncube then took him on as assistant editor on the Sunday Standard until he was finally retired in 2008 after nearly half a century in the journalism profession.
With his new recall Saidi will become deputy to a man who was not born when he cycled on assignment in the then African townships of Salisbury. Pikirayi Deketeke, the journalist, who as editor presided over the final demise of the once illustrious Herald is in his early forties.
Saidi confirmed to The Zimbabwe Times that he had been approached.
Sources say Saidi was approached by Isaac Zulu, assistant editor (Administration) on The Herald, also a veteran of journalism in Zambia.
“The post of deputy editor-in-chief at the Herald has been open for ages,” said one source. “Prior to the job being offered to Saidi there was fierce jockeying for the post among the four assistant editors on the embattled newspaper.
Actively jockeying for the post were Zulu himself, as well as Hatred Zenenga, assistant editor (Business), veteran Gareth Willard, the longest serving and by far the most experienced journalist on the Herald, who was shunted sideways to assistant editor (Technical) and the mercurial Caesar Zvayi, the assistant editor (News).
Zvayi was miraculously promoted from political editor to assistant editor on his return from his brief sojourn in Gaborone, Botswana, where he jumped ship to take up a teaching post. He was sensationally deported by Botswana authorities and returned to an even more senior position and a bigger package at Herald House.
Insiders say the controversial Zvayi, a school teacher of Geography by profession, was vigorously campaigning for the plum job. Zvayi and editor Deketeke are among a handful of journalists that have been slapped with targeted sanctions by the United States administration for actively supporting the Mugabe administration’s election terror campaign last year through articles that were published in their newspaper.
One source said Zvayi had been completely ruled out of the running for the job of deputy editor because the inclusive government has demanded greater professionalism at the State-run newspaper which has seen its sales plummet dramatically over the years.
The Herald enjoyed an unchallenged monopoly in the newspaper publishing industry until the arrival on the scene of the Daily News in 1999. The newcomer capitalised on a simple recipe – investigating and publishing the news that the Herald swept under the carpet as well as denying Zimbabwe’s politicians the sacred-cow status customarily accorded to them by The Herald.
Within a year The Herald circulation plummeted from 165 000 to 50 000 copies sold per day, while The Daily News flourished from zero to 129 500 copies sold within one tear. The Daily News also broke the stranglehold of the 100 year-old Herald on the lucrative advertising market.
Faced with the total collapse of its newspaper empire the government reacted in drastic fashion. The Daily News printing press was bombed, the editor and staff were harassed, some into exile and the paper itself was banned.
Saidi’s brief is to rebuild a newspaper that now sells 15 000 copies a day and prints only eight pages per issues, where it used to publish 36, 38 or even more pages in the past. To achieve this he will have to attract back to The Herald the qualified and experienced journalists who have jumped ship over the years. As he faces this Herculean task Saidi must content with other newspapers preparing for launch.
The publisher of The Zimbabwe Independent and the Zimbabwe Standard, Trevor Ncube, has already announced the imminent launch of his first daily title, to be called Newsday. Sources say Barnabas Tondhlana who served as news editor at the launch of The Daily News 10 years ago will steer the new ship.
Embattled Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor has announced the equally imminent launch of his own daily newspaper The Daily Evening Gazette. The year ahead should see competition stiffen as more titles emerge, with competition for staff and advertising creating unprecedented rivalry.
Saidi and Deketeke will have a head start. While addressing the challenge of establishing internal stability on board their old and discredited ship, they will constantly be checking on the horizon for the arrival of any new rival, especially The Daily News. They also have to content with a readership long disillusioned by the staid content of The Herald and its sister publications.
“I am considering it,” he told The Zimbabwe Times on Sunday. “Yes it’s something that has been proposed to me. We are still talking. I will talk to them again on Tuesday (after the holiday).”
He declined to go into detail, saying he was still negotiating the terms. However, a source privy to the negotiations said Saidi had demanded greater editorial independence and insisted that he will not take instructions from presidential administration or be told what to do. But the editor is Deketeke and he has had no problem taking instructions from above in the past.
A senior reporter at the Herald who spoke on condition of anonymity agreed that the newspaper would be in great hands with Saidi, He said Saidi would have to contend with a team of new and much younger reporters, a more powerful audience and serious external meddling in editorial affairs.
Those who have worked with Saidi say he is not one to be suckered or seduced by fads or peer pressure – a fact that makes the reporter confident Saidi will have a clear and broader vision for a newspaper that has seen its readership decline over the years.
Saidi is however likely to face philosophical differences with the presidential administration which literally gate-keeps everything that is published in the newspaper. He also risks sullying his own reputation by association with a discredited newspaper if he fails to assert his authority sufficiently to change the editorial thrust of The Herald, one observer said.
The Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee, a taskforce mandated with keeping tabs on the inclusive government, has demanded that The Herald starts reporting like a truly public medium of communication and stop acting as a public relations mouthpiece for Zanu-PF. The newspaper has been regularly used to lampoon the opposition.
To rescue the newspaper, which JOMIC asserts could earn desperately needed revenue, heads had to roll. Saidi was said to have been given tough targets to achieve such as making sure the newspaper breaks even and starts making a profit.
The challenge ahead of Saidi and Deketeke is to convince the politicians that for The Herald to make a profit their wrong-doing or failure must be placed in the public domain along with their good deeds for the consumption of the people.
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I wonder what William would say?
Bill needs a job and maybe ZANU pf knows his circumstance ie financially so they can buy him like they did the MDC itself
why did they not offer this post to Joram Nyathi, who has also been campaigning for it through his vitriolic attacks on the West and others critical of RGM and Zanu PF?
It is surprising that a seventy-year old journalist who has been in the profession for more than forty years still possesses the energy to run the Herald. If he still finds himself useful to the profession, and can even boast about it, with all his yesmen cheering, what then is all this talk about Mugabe over-staying his usefulness?
Many people still revere Mr Mugabe as a pundit, who evidently gave land and economic power to those who applied and queued for it after decades of subjugation. If yesterday Mr Saidi was speaking his mind as a free journalist, today he should be guided by the principles and laws that make him a civil servant. He has agreed to be censored and gagged in order to safe-guard our freedoms as a people. He will not preach without fear or favour but should inform and entertain in a free world devoid of hate.
If he chooses to do otherwise, he will be an anathema to the profession, just like many who were once shining stars in a free Zimbabwe.
This arrangement won’t work. I don’t know the man personally, only having heard his name mentioned throughout the years in Bulawayo but the fact remains: you do not go to bed with Zanu-PF ( in this case in the guise of state media) and maintain your image. No matter what his good intentions will be he will be arm twisted and in no time will leave.
I like that line that he has made it clear he will take no instruction from presidential administration. He is deputy editor remember? He takes instruction from his boss, who in turn is the point of contact for any presidential machinations. Besides, in no time you can expect Charamba and Co to have their way.
One thing I would ask is does Saidi expect to change anything? He needs to increase readership and this he can do by bringing back real journos (not the likes of Geography teachers who masquerade as such) and these journalists in turn write real no holds barred stories (let’s face it, there are probably a million exposes waiting to be unleashed in Harare alone right now). This will attract readers because we want real, true to life reporting.
Do you in your right minds see the regime letting this happen? Almost naive isn’t it? Almost like those who welcomed the negotiations in South Africa thinking Zanu-PF would negotiate itself out of power, that Mugabe would simply arrange a transition and give way to Tsvangirai when he could not do that for Zvobgo or anyone else in his party.
Guys, wake up and smell the coffee.
Smiler Mucaradi you are joking right? Would you care to explain who you mean by the “people”. Interestingly, ZBC is also owned by the “people”. Strangely, the owners of ZTV, the “people”, prefer to watch foreign TV channels as evidenced by satellite dishes on homes of anyone who can afford them. Somehow, the “people”, the majority of whom voted for the MDC, have their newspapers still dominated by Zanu P.F. functionaries to the almost total exclusion of those they voted for. Smiler Mucaradi, hats off to you. Your thought processes operate in mysterious ways.
Hudson Yemen: Your worries about Mr Saidi`s age are completely meaningless. For your own information Saidi is not an old man out of touch with the modern trends in journalism but a veteran journalist who is in touch with the past and present world, from World War 2 to World Cup 2010. Its every newspaper publisher`s dream to engage veteran newsmen like, Bill Saidi, Geoff Nyarota, Fidelis Zvomuya,etc, because with them success is normally guaranteed. However l am not sure if things are going to work out as anticipated on this one. l just cant see Saidi possessing the powers to change anything at Herald House