JOHANNESBURG - While the world watches on in anticipation for the latest news to emerge from Zimbabwe, Kenneth Chikanga, who works for Independent Media Solutions, responsible for Business Report layout, and is Editor of the zimbabwedigitalnews.com newspaper, says the most interesting aspect of the past 48 hours has been how International media has been chasing the story, and how difficult it is to cover the African story in the digital age.
Was it a coup, did the events themselves fit the description of a coup, was it scripted and did anyone really foresee that this was going to happen in the way it did?
“As our Business Report website did, the zimbabwedigitalnews.com website covered the events and it became clear at some point that no one, not even people in Harare themselves, knew what was happening. We tried to tune into the traditional sources of news, CNN, BBC, SA’s SABC, ENCA, Al Jazeera…there was not one organisation that was prepared to report, and to report with authority, what was actually going on," Chikanga said.
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“For years we knew that covering the African story is difficult, but the events in Zimbabwe in the last 24 to 48 hours proved that the country of Zimbabwe was entering into uncharted territory, for long hours everyone was scrambling to know what was going on, and the media struggled to report the events as they happened in the cover of darkness, until that moment at 4am, when Mj General Sibusiso Moyo came on TV to say that the ZDF was only looking for the criminals who were hanging around President Mugabe.
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