{"id":2806,"date":"2015-03-28T02:45:40","date_gmt":"2015-03-28T10:45:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/?p=2806"},"modified":"2015-06-13T02:47:14","modified_gmt":"2015-06-13T10:47:14","slug":"no-room-for-corporate-bullies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/no-room-for-corporate-bullies\/","title":{"rendered":"No Room For Corporate Bullies"},"content":{"rendered":"
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March 28, 2015<\/abbr><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Zimbabwe on Thursday witnessed the worst development in the history of media freedom.<\/span><\/p>\n

NewsDay Editorial<\/strong><\/p>\n

While in the past the onslaught had been perpetrated by government agents, this time, it was the country\u2019s leading mobile operator \u2014 Econet Wireless and its banking unit Steward Bank \u2014 pouncing on a Zimbabwean news agency, The Source for merely doing its job.<\/p>\n

The two companies seized the news agency\u2019s equipment, after getting an order from the High Court, claiming they were looking for their confidential material used to publish some stories.<\/p>\n

This was despite The Source approaching the courts challenging the order obtained by Econet and Steward Bank.
\nOne of the stories claimed Steward bank, a subsidiary of Econet Wireless, holds $30 million in government Treasury Bills. Another said Steward Bank would seize businessman Phillip Chiyangwa\u2019s land to recover a $2 million debt.
\nThe raid was aimed at finding out what documents or information the journalists held about Econet and Steward Bank and where they got the information from.<\/p>\n

The Source\u2019s lawyer, Chris Mhike, challenged that Econet and Steward Bank\u2019s behaviour violated freedom of expression and was an onslaught to media freedom.<\/p>\n

Journalists yesterday responded by boycotting a Press briefing called by Steward Bank after the institution\u2019s legal representative Tawanda Nyambirai refused to accede to journalists\u2019 demands that he should apologise.<\/p>\n

The actions of Econet and Steward Bank should be condemned with the contempt they deserve.
\nThe two companies should have found better ways of solving their dispute than seizing the equipment of the news agency, a behaviour which can be interpreted to imply an attempt to gag the media.<\/p>\n

It should be known to them that journalists are protected by the law under Section 61 (2) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe not to disclose their sources and have the right to publish all information viewed in the context of public interest.<\/p>\n

It is sad that such a development comes at a time Zimbabweans are battling to have the criminal defamation laws repealed in order to ensure that the freedoms of expression enshrined in the supreme law of the land are fully realised.<\/p>\n

It is very regrettable that Econet and Steward Bank seized the journalists\u2019 laptops which do not only contain information about the two companies, but information on many other stories that have nothing to do with them.
\nInterestingly, Econet did not dispute the accuracy of the stories. This shows that the Strive Masiyiwa-led telecommunications firm is geared to muzzle the Press from further publishing information on the leaked documents.<\/p>\n

The country should stand and fight these practices as they would deny them the right to valuable information. We commend journalists for showing Nyambirai that they are united and ready to fight for their freedom from oppressive tendencies by both government and corporate bullies in the form of large corporates like Econet.<\/p>\n

One of the cardinal rules of journalism is not to reveal the source of the stories. That rule is sacrosanct and has been in practice for ages.<\/p>\n

Econet should put its house in order and ensure that \u201cconfidential\u201d documents do not leak. Journalists have a role to play and no amount of tactics by corporate bullies and those that are against the free flow of information would succeed.<\/p>\n

Source::\u00a0https:\/\/www.newsday.co.zw\/2015\/03\/28\/no-room-for-corporate-bullies\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

March 28, 2015 Zimbabwe on Thursday witnessed the worst development in the history of media freedom. NewsDay Editorial While in the past the onslaught had been perpetrated by government agents, this time, it was the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,10],"tags":[1292],"class_list":["post-2806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-2","category-entertainment","tag-corporate-bullies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2806"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2807,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2806\/revisions\/2807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}