A Diagnosis of Daily News’ Framing of Anti-Mnangagwa Protests Through the Media Capture Lens

Abstract

This qualitative interpretive case study investigates how Zimbabwe’s independent daily newspaper, the Daily News, reported on the 31 March 2025, anti-President Emmerson Mnangagwa protests organized by war veterans. Established in 1999, the Daily News is regarded as Zimbabwe’s alternative media, but of late, the newspaper’s editorial disposition has shown symptoms associated with capture, necessitating this study. The other privately owned daily newspaper, NewsDay, has maintained its anti-government editorial stance, while the state-controlled newspapers under the Zimbabwe Newspapers Group (Zimpapers) are ZANU-PF propaganda mouthpieces. In the context of this study, “independent” means free from state interference in the media’s editorial operations. Steeped in media capture and alternative media topographies, this study also investigates whether the Daily News aligns with its alternative media stance in its reports. Further, it sought to establish if the Daily News reports were symptomatic of media capture. Findings, which were subjected to a framing analysis, suggest that the Daily News’ reports were symptomatic of capture by pro-regime forces. This eroded the diversity of opinion in a country yearning for democracy.

1. Introduction

The rise of Emmerson Mnangagwa to the presidency following a military coup that toppled Robert Mugabe from power in 2017 has failed to usher in the anticipated political stability in Zimbabwe (Beardsworth et al., 2019; Noyes, 2020; Rusero & Mvundura, 2020; Ruhanya & Gadzikwa, 2024; Chibuwe et al., 2025). In power since 1980, when Zimbabwe attained independence from the British following a protracted liberation war, Mugabe ruled the country with an iron fist for 37 years (W. J. Mpofu, 2021; Motsi & Kurebwa, 2020; Tshuma & Sibanda, 2024). His intolerant politics saw him unleash violence on opposition political opponents, restrict media freedom, and dismiss ZANU-PF politicians angling for the presidency. On succeeding Mugabe, President Mnangagwa dubbed his rule “the New Dispensation” and his government “the Second Republic”. This implied a break from Mugabe’s governance model and the embracement of democratic values (Maodza, 2024; Kupeta, 2024). Two years into his second and last five-year presidential term, some disillusioned politicians within ZANU-PF are demanding President Mnangagwa’s resignation. The call gained traction after President Mnangagwa’s allies advocated for an extension of his presidency to 2030. His second and last five-year term ends in 2028.

Veterans of Zimbabwe’s liberation war, led by Blessed “Bombshell” Geza, mobilized national protests against President Mnangagwa. They argued that the proposed extension of President Mnangagwa’s presidency violated the constitution. Section 91(1) of the Zimbabwean constitution disqualifies a person for election as “President if he or she has already held office as president for two terms”. The war veterans—an important block in ZANU-PF—also accused President Mnangagwa of failing to tame corruption and allegedly allowing state capture by a group of controversial young black businessmen, now popularly known by the monicker, Zvigananda. Zvigananda is a Shona word for leeches. The term Zvigananda was popularized by Vice President Constantino Chiwenga when, in a speech delivered at the national heroes’ acre in Harare at the burial of a national hero, Justin Mupamhanga, the retired general condemned ZANU-PF officials engaging in corruption and referred to them as Zvigananda (see Zimlive, 28 January 2025). The public appropriated the term to mean a faction belonging to President Mnangagwa comprising the young and rich black businessmen whose source of wealth was linked to access to state tenders. ZANU-PF is experiencing factionalism linked to President Mnangagwa’s attempt to extend his rule to 2030. The position is opposed by Vice President Chiwenga’s allies, who want the president to be succeeded by the former army general when his term ends in 2028.

It is in this context that war veterans, led by Geza, organized protests that demanded President Mnangagwa’s resignation. The protests attracted extensive media coverage. Steeped within the alternative media and media capture topographies, the study investigates how the Daily News reported on the 31 March 2025 anti-Mnangagwa protests. The protests were organized when Zimbabwe’s main opposition political party, the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), was at its weakest. Its leader, Nelson Chamisa, had quit the party, citing infiltration by the government (see Reuters, 25 January 2024). The independent media are important platforms for confronting autocracy in emerging democracies with weak opposition parties (Ungar, 1990, p. 371). Launched at the genesis of the Zimbabwe crisis in 1999, the Daily News established itself as an alternative media. It became “a site for opposition forces and a mouthpiece for dissenting civic and political voices”, challenging Mugabe’s dictatorship (Ruhanya, 2014, p. 161). Ever since then, the Daily News has adopted a leftist editorial stance representing a radical alternative media that works hand in glove with “social and political movements to challenge power structures by providing them with a platform from which to mobilize dissent” (Ruhanya, 2014, p. 162). It has “consistently campaigned for political change” as confirmed by its active mobilization of Zimbabweans against Mugabe’s proposed constitutional reforms in 1999 (Nyarota, 2006, p. 247). The reforms would have granted Mugabe executive powers and an extended presidency. It is within this context that this study seeks to perform the following:

• Examine how the Daily News reported on the March 31 anti-Mnangagwa protests;
• Explore if the Daily News aligned with its alternative media stance in its reports;
• Establish if the Daily News reports were symptomatic of media capture.

2. Media Capture

Media capture “occurs when parties that the media are supposed to be monitoring on behalf of society ‘capture’ or take hostage of the media so that they fail to perform their societal function” (Stiglitz, 2017, p. 10). It happens once “news media fail to provide the public with scrutiny of government performance” (Barnehl & Schumacher, 2024, p. 1534). They note that capture occurs when the media are coerced by an external actor to modify their editorial choices in his or her favor. This implies a lack of autonomy (Bajomi-Lazar, 2024, p. 240) or political instrumentalization of the press (Mancini, 2012). The media capture theory accounts for the press’s behavior in environments “where media freedom is curtailed by political elites” (Bajomi-Lazar, 2024, p. 238). Scholars argue that media capture undermines citizens’ interests and disables the media from fulfilling their watchdog role (Corneo, 2006; Besley & Prat, 2006). Studies on media capture suggest that dictatorial regimes capture the media to tone down criticism and secure legitimation (Besley & Prat, 2006, p. 721; Guriev & Treisman, 2019). Through media capture, autocratic regimes manage information and ensure it cements their rule (Bajomi-Lazar, 2024, p. 240). It is difficult to distinguish media capture from other forms of interference, such as censorship (Bajomi-Lazar, 2024, p. 241). However, Dragomir (2019, p. 4) argues that “the aspect that fundamentally distinguishes media capture from other forms of government control of the media is the involvement of the private sector”. An alliance between government and businesses neutralizes media autonomy, leading to their capture. What emerges from extant literature is a consensus on why dictatorial regimes capture the media. The desire to control the flow of information is central to the survival of autocratic regimes. Dictatorial governments capture the media to secure “regime friendly” editorial coverage (Barnehl & Schumacher, 2024, p. 1536). Contemporary autocracies are increasingly reliant on legitimation as opposed to blatant repression.

There is a corpus of studies on media capture, but a paucity of literature on how African autocratic regimes are covertly taking over hostile press to secure legitimation through friendly editorial coverage. Mabweazara et al. (2020) examine the media capture phenomena from a sub-Saharan Africa perspective. They examine media capture in sub-Saharan Africa within the context of patronage and clientelism. While noting that studies on media capture in Africa are “fairly new”, Mabweazara et al. (2020, p. 4) observe that such studies are important as they “map out direction for more empirically driven studies”. Mabweazara et al. (2020) is too broad and overgeneralizes. This makes the current study significant and relevant in a Zimbabwean context where the remaining independent daily newspaper—the Daily News—is showing symptoms associated with capture after Robert Mugabe’s rule. Opposition political parties accuse President Mnangagwa of rigging elections after succeeding Mugabe, raising the fundamental question around his legitimacy (Kupeta, 2024). Has the Mnangagwa regime captured the Daily News to secure friendly news coverage and ultimately legitimation? This study uses the Daily News’ coverage of the March 31 anti-Mnangagwa protests as a signpost from which to decipher symptoms of media capture.

3. The Daily News, Alternative Media, and Zimbabwe’s Democratization

This study is situated in the context of the Daily News having established itself as Zimbabwe’s main alternative newspaper that has historically fought for democracy in post-independence Zimbabwe. Since its establishment in April 1999, the Daily News challenged Robert Mugabe’s dictatorship by mobilizing Zimbabweans against his ZANU-PF government’s misrule (D. Moyo, 2005; Chuma, 2005; Ruhanya, 2014, 2016). A search on Google Scholar confirmed the absence of literature specifically investigating the Daily News’s editorial relations with President Mnangagwa and ZANU-PF in the post-Robert Mugabe era. This is despite unconfirmed allegations that the Daily News has allegedly been captured by ruling elites who have tamed its antagonistic stance towards the government. This study is significant, especially in a context where some scholars have dismissed the Mnangagwa regime as an extension of Mugabe’s governance model (Kupeta, 2024; Maodza, 2024). Assuming such assumptions are correct, it is central to locate the Daily News’ editorial disposition considering its important role as an alternative media platform that has fiercely advocated for democracy in Zimbabwe for decades. It is important to investigate the state of the Daily News’s pro-democracy stance at a time when Zimbabwe’s opposition parties were at their weakest. The independent media are effective platforms for confronting autocracy in emerging democracies with weak opposition parties (Ungar, 1990, p. 371).

There is a consensus among scholars that the Daily News constitutes an alternative media platform. D. Moyo (2005, p. 109) argues that the newspaper immensely contributed “to opening up the democratic space in Zimbabwe”. This is opposed to the state-controlled press, such as The Herald, renowned for pursuing “a peculiar type of journalism that avoided confronting those in power and effectively served as propaganda mouthpiece for government” (D. Moyo, 2005, p. 112). This narrows the public sphere and denies citizens a platform to challenge autocratic regimes. The Daily News actively “challenged ZANU-PF’s oppressive politics by providing political and civic dissidents with a platform on which to voice their concerns about the political and economic turmoil” (Ruhanya, 2014, p. 125), contradicting the state-controlled media empire that reinforced ZANU-PF’s hegemonic interests (Rusike, 1990; Saunders, 1999). Thus, ZANU-PF turned the state-controlled media into ideological state apparatuses (Chuma, 2005; Maodza, 2017). Ruhanya (2014, p. 133) argues that the Daily News’ anti-ZANU-PF editorial disposition “had no precedence in the history of state-media relations” and affirms that the privately owned newspaper “became an alternative medium”. The Daily News “organized and gave a voice to the regime’s dissenters” (Ruhanya, 2014, p. 134). In 1999, the Daily News successfully campaigned against Mugabe’s proposed constitutional reforms. In 2002, the Daily News mobilized Zimbabweans against the results of the presidential elections after the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, alleged they were rigged in favor of Mugabe. Ruhanya (2016, p. 129) insists that the Daily News always “mobilized various forms of opposition politics against perceived authoritarianism” and “was outspoken about and critical of undemocratic tendencies”. Chuma (2005, p. 49) concurs that the privately owned press served “as a locale for counter hegemonic mobilization and became a significant terrain for mobilization against issues of poverty, democratic right and corruption”. Whereas the Daily News contributed immensely to Zimbabwe’s democratization through its alternative media stance during the Mugabe era, little to nothing has been studied on its relations with President Mnangagwa’s government. By assessing how the Daily News reported the March 31 anti-Mnangagwa protests, this contribution notes that the newspaper mutated from its anti-government editorial position.

4. The Media and Protests in Zimbabwe

Whereas there is corpus of scholarship on how social media has been deployed to challenge a despotic ZANU-PF regime in Zimbabwe (C. Moyo, 2018; S. Mpofu & Mare, 2020; Hodzi & Zihnioğlu, 2023), there is a dearth of literature examining how the mainstream media have reported on citizens’ protests. Citizen protests are a form of communication that cannot be ignored. A search on Google Scholar only generated a negligible number of articles (Mare, 2013; Vanyoro, 2020; Ruhanya & Matsilele, 2022) that examine how the press reported on anti-ZANU-PF government protests during and after Mugabe’s rule. In the context of this study, protests refer to citizen street demonstrations and job stayaways. In 2018, CCC supporters poured into the streets of Harare protesting presidential election results, which they claimed were rigged in favor of President Mnangagwa. Again, in 2019, thousands of Zimbabweans went into the streets to protest high fuel prices. Eight were reportedly shot dead by security forces. In 2025, Zimbabweans heeded calls by war veterans led by Geza to protest President Mnangagwa’s alleged maladministration and an attempt to illegally extend his rule to 2030 in violation of the national constitution. Some citizens took to the streets, and others “stayed away”, ultimately shutting down Harare. Scores were arrested and prosecuted. The protests attracted extensive media coverage but little academic attention. The study attends to this omission by exploring how the Daily News reported on the protests. Studies that have examined how the mainstream media have reported on citizens’ protests (Mare, 2013; Vanyoro, 2020; Ruhanya & Matsilele, 2022) have not looked at how Daily News mediated the protests from a media capture perspective. Vanyoro (2020) interrogates how the state-controlled newspapers Chronicle and The Herald, and the privately owned Daily News, reported on the #Zimshutdown protests of 2019. These were street protests over hiked fuel prices. Specifically, Vanyoro (2020, p. 197) investigated how the press “sought to police protester’s rage, anger and emotions by prescribing legitimate forms of protests compatible with the idea of a more acceptable state sanctioned Zimbabwean identity”. His study pivoted on how ZANU-PF prescribes “normative Zimbabwean-ness” and deploys the media to delegitimize citizens whose behavior it considers not reflective of its version of Zimbabwean-ness. Vanyoro (2020, p. 203) argues that The Herald and Chronicle delegitimized the #Zimshutdown protests by generating stories “treating violence and looting as foreign or criminal or both” and consequently not “Zimbabwean”. Through manipulation of state-controlled media, ZANU-PF enacted naturalization discourses, which negatively depicted the protesting citizens as uncivilized and unruly. Such discourses were meant to justify the deployment of repressive state apparatus and the use of force against the protesting citizens while ignoring the root causes of the protests (Vanyoro, 2020, p. 203). Unlike the state-controlled press, Vanyoro (2020, p. 193) argues that the Daily News “allowed more multivocal political opinions on the protests to be reflected,” noting that the privately owned newspaper “has historically had an abrasive relationship with the ZANU-PF government”. The Daily News’ reports emphasized the causes of the protests, including “frustration about the state of the economy” (Vanyoro, 2020, p. 206).

In a separate study that examined how The Herald and another privately owned newspaper, NewsDay, reported on the November 2017 protests that culminated in the resignation of Robert Mugabe from the presidency, Ruhanya and Matsilele (2022, p. 69) argue that the “two normally opposite newspapers converged against Mugabe and how they framed his demise”. They note that The Herald and NewsDay “reported in similar language and tone, demonstrating media convergence between a state-controlled newspaper and private and oppositional publication”. The newspapers framed the protests as acceptable because they were against Robert Mugabe’s dynastic ambition, which would have seen him replaced by his wife, Grace Mugabe. Ruhanya and Matsilele (2022) insist that in their reportage of the November 2017 protests, The Herald and NewsDay conspired to frame Mugabe as an unwanted leader who had become a national liability. Such labels are “meant to strip individuals of their humanity, citizenship, legitimacy or belonging” (Ruhanya & Matsilele, 2022, p. 73). Mare (2013) argues that the press can only effectively report on protests if there is a convergence between social media and the legacy media. Social media “breaks news during protests while mainstream media weighs in with verification, contextualization, and amplification” (Mare, 2013, p. 83). Such a collaboration caters to voices previously silenced and delegitimized by legacy media.

The current study is unique. It examines how Daily News—renowned for abrasive and adversarial relations with ZANU-PF—reported on the March 31 anti-Mnangagwa protests. Such an investigation is important. The privately-owned press plays a watchdog role, especially in a dictatorship where the state-owned and controlled media promote the hegemonic interests of the ruling elites. Mnangagwa’s presidency had raised hope for a democratic Zimbabwe, but his autocratic tendencies amounted to change without change (Helliker & Murisa, 2020; Kupeta, 2024). Secondly, in weak democracies such as Zimbabwe, where the governing ZANU-PF party has decimated opposition political parties through covert operations, “the private press can occupy that role of opposition” by playing the watchdog role (Ruhanya & Matsilele, 2022, p. 78). It is in this context that this study probes how the Daily News reported on the March 31 protests whose agenda sought to stop President Mnangagwa from illegally extending his presidential term. The protesters also wanted President Mnangagwa to arrest corrupt individuals associated with the ruling elites. How the Daily News reported on the protests is reflective of the newspaper’s capture by pro-regime forces.

5. Media Capture Theory

Media capture is a complement of a broader phenomenon known as state capture (Dragomir, 2019, p. 3). The media capture theory is an offshoot of political science and history. The theory proposes four components of media capture. These are regulatory capture, control of public service media, use of state financing as control, and ownership takeover. Regulatory capture occurs when the government exerts influence on the media through draconian regulations, while control of public service media happens when the state maintains a tight grip over the publicly owned press. The use of state financing as a control tool implies that governments may control the privately owned media—that they deem adversarial—through such trickeries as denying them advertising revenue. “State advertising is plausibly the most insidious form of government funding that government may use as a tool to reward or punish media outlets depending on how they report on government and its allies” (Dragomir, 2019, p. 11). The government may use other means, including state subsidies, to capture the media. The key tenet of the media capture theory guiding this study is ownership takeover. Ownership takeover occurs when the government, acting alone or covertly through oligarchs, acquires the privately owned press and manipulates its editorial policy to ensure it is positively responsive to its hegemonic interests. Changes in the ownership of the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ), the publishers of the Daily News, and the subsequent mutation of its editorial disposition from an anti-government newspaper to a pro-ZANU-PF regime outlet after Mnangagwa became president, are suggestive of a covert ownership takeover. In 2017, the ANZ controversially bought the Financial Gazette from a ZANU-PF politician and former Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor Gideon Gono. Media reports in 2005 linked the Financial Gazette’s ownership to Zimbabwe’s Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) in what became known as Mediagate (Muleya, 2005). In a highly politically polarized environment obtaining in Zimbabwe, where the media are either pro-ZANU-PF and anti-opposition or pro-opposition and anti-ZANU-PF, it is suspicious that the government allowed the ANZ to buy the CIO-controlled Financial Gazette. It is these red flags that the study proposes are suggestive of ownership takeover at the Daily News, which has seen its editorial stance visibly transitioning from its historical, outright anti-ZANU-PF disposition to positive reportage. This assumption is given credence by the fact that the ZANU-PF government has in the past captured another privately owned media outlet, the Zimbabwe Mirror Newspapers (ZMNG), which was owned by Ibbo Mandaza in what became known as the Mirrorgate (Ureke, 2016).

6. Brief Notes on Methodology

The study adopts a qualitative interpretive research approach and a single case study design. Qualitative studies seek depth of understanding through descriptive analytical instruments (Miles & Huberman, 1984; Patton, 2002). This study describes how the Daily News reported on the March 31 anti-Mnangagwa protests. It is a single case study confined to the Daily News. The Daily News was chosen for examination by virtue of the newspaper representing Zimbabwe’s alternative media since 1999, when it was established, which accommodated voices challenging state power in an environment that was dominated by the state-controlled press. It becomes Zimbabwe’s oldest privately-owned daily newspaper still in existence. There are four daily newspapers in Zimbabwe, namely, The Herald, Chronicle, Daily News, and NewsDay. The Herald and Chronicle are published by a state-controlled media firm, Zimpapers, and are propaganda mouthpieces for the government (Rusike, 1990; Saunders, 1999; Chuma, 2005). The NewsDay was established 10 years after the Daily News was already in circulation. It is on this basis that this instalment interrogates how the Daily News mediated the March 31 anti-Mnangagwa protests.

The study’s population involves 11 purposively selected stories that were published by the Daily News in the run-up to the protests and the period soon after the demonstrations (March and April 2025). These were all the articles that were published by the Daily News on the protests. The standard determining a sample size in any study is informed by its aims (Guest et al., 2006; Padgett, 2008). The stories were published when war veterans actively mobilized Zimbabweans to protest Mnangagwa’s presidency. The political environment was tense with the government deploying security agents into the streets to quell the protests. Nearly 100 protesters were arrested (see NewsDay, 10 April 2025). Data was collected through digital archival research. The researcher logged into the Daily News website and searched for stories on the March 31 protests by typing the words “Blessed Bombshell Geza”, “protests”, “demonstrations”, “Mnangagwa resign”, “#ED2030”, and “shutdown”. The search generated 11 articles. Purposive sampling enabled the selection of stories that specifically responded to the objective of the study.

The purposively selected stories were subjected to framing analysis to unpack hidden meaning in the texts (Esser & D’Angelo, 2006). Framing analysis exposes the dominant ideas embedded in texts (Benoit, 1999). Media frame events in a way meant to influence the audience’s perception of reality (Fordjour & Sikanku, 2022). Some aspects of reality are made more salient than others (Entman, 1993). Through framing, the media legitimate some aspects of reality while synchronously delegitimizing others. There are forces within and outside newsrooms that influence frame selection and deployment (D’Angelo, 2002). Frames “are not necessarily initiated by journalists but are an “outcome of interactions with editors as well as sources outside the newsroom” (Boesman et al., 2016, p. 4). Frames are part of a larger conversation that serve certain interests (Reese, 2007, p. 248). This is suggestive of the existence of forces that structure media frames when reporting on events, including protests.

The Daily News established itself as an anti-ZANU-PF government newspaper. It serves as a platform for the mobilization of Zimbabweans around “democratic rights and corruption, especially as expressed by those opposed to government” (Chuma, 2005, p. 41). The newspaper mobilizes “various forms of opposition against perceived authoritarianism” and engages in “alternative journalism” (Ruhanya, 2016, p. 132). This background enables the researcher to contextually examine how the Daily News reported on the March 31 protests. The protesters’ grievances aligned with what the Daily News has traditionally actively advocated—constitutionalism and a fight against corruption by ruling elites. The framing analysis enabled the researcher to examine whether the Daily News’ reports mobilized Zimbabweans against a perceived illegality (Mnangagwa’s unconstitutional bid for extended presidency) and an end to corruption or sought to demobilize the protesters through demonization in what could amount to media capture. The Daily News’ coverage of the March 31 protests becomes a litmus test of its editorial independence and credibility. Using existing scholarship on the Daily News-State relations as its locus of enunciation, the study examines manifestations of media capture in the newspaper’s reportage of the anti-Mnangagwa protests.

7. Findings

The study examined how the Daily News reported on the March 31 anti-Mnangagwa protests. It explored the narratives emanating from the Daily News reports and examined the extent to which it aligned with its established “alternative media” editorial posture. The study also sought to identify signs of media capture in the Daily News reports. Media capture in the context of this study implies the Daily News’ lack of autonomy when reporting on the protests. This lack of autonomy is identifiable through examination of its frame choices. The argument is that when a newspaper has an established editorial culture, signs of media capture manifest when there is a visible shift from its leftist stance to a pro-regime disposition.

8. The Daily News’s News Sourcing Culture Symptomatic of Capture

The Daily News’ newsgathering habits show an unusual pattern dominated by government sources. Of the 11 stories it published, nine derived from government sources. The remaining two were editorial comments regurgitating the government’s position on the protests. News sources influence storylines by ensuring they serve their interests (D’Angelo, 2002; Boesman et al., 2016). The Daily News’ single sourcing techniques, hitherto characteristic of the state-controlled The Herald newspaper, enabled the enactment of narratives legitimizing the status quo while delegitimating the protesters whose grievances were obscured and condemned. Extant scholarship on protests posits that the mass media frame demonstrations negatively (McLeod, 2007; Harlow & Brown, 2020; Aldrete, 2024). Such an argument cannot account for politically polarized contexts as obtained in Zimbabwe, where the media are bifurcated along political lines. Either the media supported the ruling ZANU-PF and condemned the opposition in what became known as patriotic journalism or supported the opposition and opposed the government in what scholars termed oppositional journalism (Ranger, 2005; Chibuwe, 2016). The Daily News pursued oppositional journalism—an equivalent of the alternative public sphere—which granted the oppressed citizens a voice (Chuma, 2005; D. Moyo, 2005; Ruhanya, 2014, 2016). The table below (

Table 1. The Daily News stories on the anti-Mnangagwa protests.

Scheme	Source/s	Writer/s	Page
(1) Geza’s shutdown call hits the skids…It was business as usual across the country yesterday	Government and police	Blessings Mashaya and Brandon Josphat	Front
(2) Geza in shocking threat of violence …But police urge Zim not to pay attention to the bluff	Government and police	Brandon Josphat	Front
(3) Police maintain major presence following Monday’s unsuccessful mass demonstrations	Police	Blessing Mashaya and Brandon Josphat	Front
(4) Intended demos come to nothing as people choose to stay away from city center	Government, police, and vox pop	Jeffrey Mavundisi, Brandon Josphat and Blessing Mashaya	Front
(5) Monday protests: 98 remanded in custody	Magistrates Courts	Rutendo Ngara	Front
(6) Jury still out on mooted demos…Amid little enthusiasm for today’s protests	Police and ZANU-PF-affiliated sources	Blessing Mashaya	Front
(7) Protests not magic bullet	Editorial comment	Editor	Inside
(8) ED lauds citizens for peaceful conduct	President Mnangagwa/Government	Brandon Josphat	Front
(9) Protests will not resolve challenges	Editorial comment	Editor	Front
(10) Police on high alert nationally…as some obscure groups threaten to mount protests	Police	Brandon Josphat	Front
(11) Government vows to stop unlawful protests	Government	Brandon Josphat and Brighton Muronzereyi	Front

) shows the stories that were published by the Daily News on the protests. They demonstrate the narrative that the Daily News promoted about the protests, which is strangely pro-state, contrary to its established oppositional journalism trajectory. Although some scholars argue that official sources, including government ministers, enjoy media access as they are natural newsmakers and easily structure the news agenda (Hall et al., 1978), “reliance upon single sources carries with it a clear danger” (Anderson, 2017, p. 7). Single sourcing is the source of all news evil (Wilcox, 2011).

The Daily News’ reliance on government sources and law enforcement agencies, whose reactions to the protests were predictable, is telling. It is suggestive of a premeditated editorial agenda that enacted anti-protest discourses. This is even though the protesters’ grievances appeared logical and genuine. The protesters wanted President Mnangagwa to respect the constitution by not seeking an extended presidential term when his presidency ended in 2028. They also wanted him to tame corruption. They gave the president an ultimatum to resign if he failed to address their concerns or face mass protests. A call to constitutionalism and against corruption seems legitimate.

By examining the Daily News’ newsgathering rituals, the signs of capture manifest. It is at the news sourcing stage that frames are constructed. When journalists choose who to give a voice and who to silence, they legitimize and delegitimize narratives. It is the genesis of bias. Extant scholarship suggests that media captured by the regime “are likely to exhibit biases that are believed to have significant effects on the audience’s perceptions” (Barnehl & Schumacher, 2024, p. 1540). The tone with which news is couched is also symptomatic of capture. This study suggests that the tone with which the media report issues, including protests, is dictated at the newsgathering stage. Journalists choose sources whose position on matters they are reporting is known. This is especially predictable in polarized political environments, as in Zimbabwe. Thus, at the news sourcing stage, journalists can anticipate the likely responses, tones, and agenda. Bias becomes an essential indicator of media capture as it is intertwined with agenda setting. By consistently opting for pro-government and anti-protesters sources as illustrated in the table below (Table 1), the Daily News uncharacteristically and consciously generated news that appeared suggestive of its capture by pro-Mnangagwa regime forces.

The Daily News’ state relations were historically confrontational and toxic. The government even enacted draconian laws to contain the Daily News’ anti-establishment editorial stance while its printing press was bombed on two separate occasions (D. Moyo, 2005). Its journalists were routinely arrested while the government banned the Daily News from official state occasions. Government ministers and arms of the state, including the Zimbabwe Republic Police, refused to grant Daily News interviews. Its journalists were designated enemies of the state (Ruhanya, 2014, 2016). The Daily News was “target of government threats, including from the president himself, much more than any publication in the history of postcolonial Zimbabwe” (Chuma, 2005, p. 53). It is in this context that this study finds the abrupt thawing of the state-Daily News relations as indicative of capture by pro-regime forces. Since the Mnangagwa government is considered an extension of Robert Mugabe’s governance model (Maodza, 2024), change without change (Kupeta, 2024), or worse than Mugabeism (Ruhanya & Gadzikwa, 2024), the Daily News editorial somersault in an environment where democracy is under threat is revealing. The ZANU-PF government has, in the past, clandestinely captured privately owned newspapers. Between 2006 and 2007, it captured the Zimbabwe Mirror Newspaper Group and the Financial Gazette through shadowy shelf companies linked to the CIO. The takeover “was seen as part of a wider systematic attempt by the state to muscle into the private media and tone down criticism from the same media” (Ureke, 2016, p. 3).

A pattern also emerges (see Table 1) where a select group of journalists reported on the protests, mainly Brandon Josphat and Blessing Mashaya. Of the nine news stories that were published, Brandon Josphat was involved in seven. Blessing Mashava in four, which was co-authored with Brandon Josphat. The other two were editorial comments. This observation seems banal, but in journalism it is quite revealing. It suggests that these journalists were cued into knowing which sources to engage when reporting on the protests and which sources to avoid. Journalists develop routines and norms for selecting sources informed by factors including the newsroom environment, the need to conform to the editorial policy and organizational expectations. Accordingly, journalists are socialized to prioritize sources that align with newsroom norms (Breed, 1955). This is indicative that the selected few journalists were positively responsive to newsroom norms and the Daily News’s editorial policy. The editorial commentaries—which were biasedly anti-protests—may have socialized journalists into adopting anti-protests sources, ultimately generating biased narratives suggestive of media capture.

9. The Daily News’ Anti-Protests Narratives Indicative of Capture

All the stories that were published by the Daily News were uncharacteristically anti-protest. This is a major shift from how the Daily News reported on anti-regime protests in the past. Examples include how the Daily News had galvanized Zimbabweans against Robert Mugabe’s proposed constitutional referendum that would have granted him an extended presidential term in 1999. It was through the Daily News’ active anti-constitutional amendment editorial discourses that Zimbabweans rebuffed Mugabe (Chuma, 2005; D. Moyo, 2005; Ruhanya, 2014, 2016). Consequently, the Daily News’ relentless anti-protest editorial disposition of March 2025, which derived from its selective news sourcing techniques, is indicative of capture. Such a stance betrays efforts at suppressing mass dissent and preserving autocracy. Barnehl and Schumacher (2024, pp. 1537–1538) note that media capture can be measured by “focusing on the editorial output of the news media,” adding that, “a measure sensitive to changes in produced content could reveal the consequences of ownership changes for the independence of a single outlet”.

In a front-page article titled, Geza’s shutdown call hits the skids…it was business as usual across the country yesterday, the Daily News deploys single sourcing techniques to generate discourses that portray the protesters negatively. The article is conveniently sourced from the Information Minister and President Mnangagwa’s ally, Jenfan Muswere. Muswere labels the protesters “cyber terrorists”, “enemies of progress”, and “mischief makers seeking to reverse the gains of the country’s liberation struggle through demonization of Zimbabwe’s image, its people and leadership”. The article also extensively quotes President Mnangagwa—the target of the protests—branding the protesting war veterans as “troublemakers” and “rogue elements” that constitute a “national security threat”. War veterans are an essential cog in ZANU-PF and national politics. In the past, they invaded white owned farms, eventually leading to the controversial land reform program in Zimbabwe. In 2017, they mobilized Zimbabweans against Robert Mugabe, leading to his downfall. The article published on 23 April 2025, quoted President Mnangagwa saying:

The Second Republic stands ready to protect law abiding citizens while dealing decisively with misguided and rogue elements. Divisive and alarmist elements will never triumph over a nation with a rich liberation history and born out of the blood of the brave sons and daughters of this sacred land…All patriotic Zimbabweans are reminded of the need to guard against the dangers of social media.

Thus, the protesters are framed not just as a threat to national security but as unpatriotic citizens. This is a reignition of patriotic history philosophies that dominated Robert Mugabe’s rule, which compartmentalized Zimbabweans into patriots and sell-outs (Ranger, 2005). Opposing an autocratic system of governance, as represented by President Mnangagwa’s government, became an affront on Zimbabwe’s sacred liberation history. A fight for constitutionalism by the war veterans was consciously misinterpreted to mean a reversal of the gains of the liberation war and a threat to national stability, yet it was President Mnangagwa’s bid for an unconstitutional presidential term extension that threatened national security. The same article dismisses the protesters as “shadowy elements with dubious opportunistic agendas”. The Daily News did not afford the protesters a platform for reaction, and neither did it reveal the reasons why they were protesting.

Another front pager, Geza in shocking threat of violence…but police urge Zim not to pay attention to bluff, sought to quell the protests by monitoring the events around the person of Geza. The story was derived from interviews with the Zimbabwe Republic Police and organizations known to be sympathetic to ZANU-PF, including the Confederation of Zimbabwe Retailers (CRZ). It frames the war veterans as dissidents with the Daily News emphasizing that “authorities assured all Zimbabweans of their safety amid threats of imminent violence and armed conflict in the country by sacked former ZANU-PF central committee member Blessed Geza”. The article contradicts itself when it quotes national police spokesperson Paul Nyathi, indicating that “there was zero chance of the threatened violence taking place”. The Daily News repeatedly emphasized that the protests would fail by stating that “this comes after both business and members of the public shunned Geza’s call this week for an indefinite national shutdown”. It is again silent on the reasons for the protests and constantly describes Geza as “a disgruntled war veteran”. This seemed aimed at framing the protests as a personal vendetta between Geza and ZANU-PF, yet the reasons for the demonstrations had national implications. It is suggestive as well that in monogramming the protests, the Daily News sought to divert Zimbabweans from the core causes of the demonstrations. This deliberate fundamental omission is reflective of capture.

In a lead story headlined, Police maintain major presence …following Monday’s unsuccessful mass demonstrations, the Daily News adopts a celebratory tone. It dismisses the protests as “failed”, “flopped”, “unsuccessful”, and when Zimbabweans opted to stay away rather than take to the streets, the newspaper claimed it was because “they were fearing violence”, but no voices are quoted confirming it. Alternatively, the stayaway can be interpreted as communication that demonstrated that Zimbabweans were unhappy with the status quo. The story partly read:

Harare central business district remained largely deserted by early evening yesterday while virtually all the major shops and banks stayed closed. The story was the same in Bulawayo, Mutare and Gweru with majority of residents opting to stay away due to fears of potential violence. Minor skirmishes broke out in Harare as police fired teargas to disperse a small group of protesters that had gathered at Robert Mugabe Square.

Again, the Daily News uncharacteristically relied on government sources. It quoted Minister for National Security Lovemore Matuke claiming that the protests “were being pushed and funded by foreigners” and sought to undermine our stability and foster discord within our society”. Minister Matuke added that, “it has come to our attention that these protests maybe influenced by foreign interests whose motivation do not align with our national values and objectives”. Consequently, the protesters are stripped of their citizenship and are “othered” for merely demanding an end to corruption and respect for the constitution. The Daily News seemed to aid ZANU-PF in prescribing what constitutes “Zimbabwean-ness” and “unZimbabwean-ness”. The framing of protesters as “foreigners” or lacking “Zimbabwean-ness” justifies the state’s violent reprisals, and hence the Daily News cited Matuke vowing to deploy repressive state instruments—“our security forces are well prepared to handle any potential disruptions”. As a victim of state-sponsored brutality when its offices were bombed on two separate occasions and its journalists ritually arrested, the Daily News has no record of promoting violent suppression of dissent.

Another front-page story titled, Intended demos come to nothing as people choose to stay away from city centres, begins:

Adrenaline junkies who were hoping to see huge marches around the country as well as day-long battles between police and protesters, were left bitterly disappointed yesterday. After all social media hype, and relentless huffing and puffing around the so-called M31 demos by internet activists the mooted mass protests turned out to be dump squibs in Harare and Bulawayo.

The Daily News sounds celebratory that the protests had reportedly failed. The Oxford dictionary defines “adrenaline junkies” as persons “with a compulsive desire for excitement and adventure”. This seems an effort at trivializing the protests by equating the demonstrators to adventurers, while the Daily News’s participatory journalism, which is roundly biased in favor of the state, is alarming. Such naked bias is suggestive of capture. News articles “should be factual, neutral and balanced” (Anderson, 2017, p. 12). The tone is also indicative that the Daily News lacked editorial independence, a key characteristic of media capture. Barnehl and Schumacher (2024, pp. 1536–1540) argue that “media capture derives from media agenda and tone when referring to the regime, and a media captured by the regime is likely to exhibit biases”. A captured media also fails to strike a balance “between political voices and those of journalists themselves” and denies political actors the right to “speak without being filtered through journalistic interpretation” (Reese & Lee, 2012, p. 752). The Daily News story again quoted police spokesperson Paul Nyathi and Minister Matuke, condemning the protests. It denied the protesters a voice and reiterated the claim that Zimbabweans not only shunned the protests, “but also engaged in inadvertent stay aways of sorts in major areas”. The newspaper confirmed that schools and businesses were closed. It attributed the protests to ZANU-PF factionalism, thereby implying they lacked national traction. ZANU-PF is structured along communist regimes where the party “governs” the government, and there is no separation between the party and government. This implies that if the party implodes, the government fractures, resulting in a national crisis. Whereas, to some extent, the protests may have emanated from ZANU-PF factionalism, a similar situation in 2017 resulted in Mugabe losing power.

In another front-page article, Jury still out on mooted demos…Amid little public enthusiasm for today’s protest, the Daily News’ tone and editorial thrust seemed aimed at discouraging and undermining the demonstrations. It dismisses the protesters as “some disgruntled war veterans” and other “obscure groups”. The article claimed that “the mooted demonstrations come amid little evidence of public support” and are widely “interpreted as part of ZANU-PF internal power struggles and succession war”. By persistently confining the protests to ZANU-PF factionalism, it is suggestive that the Daily News sought to delegitimize them as an internal party problem. The story is sourced from Minister Matuke, the police, and organizations affiliated to ZANU-PF, including the Zimbabwe Federation of Trade Unions (ZFTU), who roundly dismiss the protests as politically motivated. The tone and agenda are sustained in an editorial commentary titled, Protests not magic bullet, which reads:

The mooted March 31 protests, like many others before them, will not provide a magic bullet to resolve the country’s deep-seated political and economic crisis. Protests, no matter, how well intentioned or passionately executed, have never been a panacea for the country’s problems. Decades of protests, demonstrations and stay aways have yielded little in terms of meaningful change.

The tone seemed intended to dissuade Zimbabweans from confronting autocracy. Not all protests lead to revolutions. The Daily News failed to appreciate the fact that protests are a communication strategy for drawing attention to grievances (Oyedemi, 2020). That the Daily News repeatedly framed the protests as “doomed” and a “futile exercise” implies that the newspaper lacked the editorial independence it enjoyed since its establishment in 1999. It is indicative of capture by pro-regime forces. Also significant to note is the fact that an editorial comment represents the official position of a newspaper on a specific issue (Riffe, 2006). Generated by the editor, it cues the newsroom on what position to adopt when reporting events of national interest. The Daily News’ editorial comment undoubtedly reinforced the status quo while castigating the protesters. Another editorial comment titled, Protests won’t resolve challenges, deployed intimidatory frames that sought to dissuade the protesters from taking to the streets. It warned that “authorities will deal ruthlessly with all unsanctioned gatherings and protests” and cautioned that the police “had intensified their surveillance of suspects”. The Daily News also claimed that the protesters’ confrontational tactics only emboldened the government to violently quell dissent. It exonerated President Mnangagwa from Zimbabwe’s political-economic crisis by claiming that “the country’s patronage system, which has been in place since the late former president Robert Mugabe era, has led to widespread corruption and inefficiency”. This is even though Mnangagwa had pledged to uproot corruption when he became president. The Daily News’ anti-protest discourses are also sustained in another headline article, Police on high alert nationally…as some obscure groups threaten to mount protests. The article quotes the police threatening to descend on citizens using social media to mobilize Zimbabweans for the protest. Police spokesperson Paul Nyathi dismisses the protesters as “malcontents” and “mischief makers” seeking to “cause anarchy in the country” and vowing to “deal with this mischief decisively” while warning Zimbabweans to “respect the country’s laws because no one is above the law”. The Daily News heightened the anti-protests discourse in yet another front page titled, Government vows to stop unlawful protests, which again derived from Minister Matuke. While threatening to “deal firmly with the protests”, the Daily News quoted Minister Matuke as saying:

The country is at peace because it is being led by President Mnangagwa. We are all following one leader who is President Mnangagwa to lead us to 2030 because of the transformation that he is doing in Zimbabwe.

The above quotation is a direct contradiction to the protesters’ call for President Mnangagwa not to seek an extended presidency beyond 2028. It can be surmised that the Daily News uncharacteristically granted voices to forces that not only denounced the protests but also supported an unconstitutional call by Mnangagwa’s associates to extend his presidency to 2030. The newspaper proceeded to extensively cite the ZANU-PF deputy youth secretary, John Paradza, vowing to crash the demonstrations. The Daily News quoted Paradza declaring the following:

As the youth league, we are rallying behind President Mnangagwa. Those calling for demonstrations are fooling themselves. Demonstrations can happen here in Masvingo when I am no longer your leader at the national level. As long as I am your leader at the national level, those demonstrations cannot happen.

In granting Paradza a platform for expression, as it did with Minister Matuke, the Daily News amplified the anti-protest discourses. A pattern emerged where the newspaper granted the anti-protest voices a platform for expression while stifling the protesters. This meant the Daily News failed to provide a “social space where power is decided” (Castells, 2007, p. 238). The negative frames used by the Daily News in condemning the anti-Mnangagwa protests “provided a way to tie news content to large structures” (Reese & Lee, 2012, p. 752), the frame sponsors, who are evidently pro-regime forces, hence the signs of its capture. This biased news-sourcing technique, which ultimately generated anti-protest narratives, is furthered in a front-page article titled, ED lauds citizens for peaceful conduct. It quoted President Mnangagwa saluting Zimbabweans, who did not partake in the protests for “their national consciousness and patriotism”. President Mnangagwa is cited as saying:

This has seen us squashing efforts by malcontents and rogue delusional elements bent on disturbing our peace, unity and harmony. Vanoukura vanoramba vachiukura, nyika ichienda (Let those barking continue barking, the nation will continue its developmental trajectory).

The above quotation compartmentalizes Zimbabweans into patriots and sell-outs. Citizens who heeded the call for protests were framed as sell-outs and worse, “barking dogs”. Those who shunned the protests are celebrated as patriots. Such biased narratives seemed designed to enact pro-regime discourses, which are suggestive of media capture. The signs of capture are evident, especially considering that the Daily News is celebrated as an anti-regime newspaper that promotes leftist views, hence deemed as an alternative public sphere in a politically polarized environment, as obtained in Zimbabwe. It is also significant to highlight that whereas the Daily News had claimed that Zimbabweans shunned the protests, hence their dismal failure, an article the newspaper published under the headline, Monday Protests: 98 remanded in custody, contradictorily implied that security agents thwarted the demonstrations.

10. Capture, Silenced, No More Alternative Voice

Findings are suggestive that the Daily News lost its status as an alternative media platform in its coverage of the anti-Mnangagwa protests. Since its establishment in April 1999, the Daily News became Zimbabwe’s alternative media by granting opposition politicians, the civil society, and other forces opposed to the ZANU-PF regime a platform for expression in an environment where government voices dominated the state-aligned media empire. All stories that were published by the Daily News on the March 31 protests derived from government sources whose narratives undermined the protests. In most instances, the newspaper repeatedly sought comments from the same government officials whose position on the protests it knew. Dominating the Daily News’ sources on the protests were Minister of National Security Lovemore Matuke, Information Minister Jenfan Muswere, and the Zimbabwe Republic Police. By virtue of their government portfolios, Minister Matuke and Minister Muswere were naturally bound to condemn the protests as the former must ensure national security while the latter is the government’s chief public relations officer. Further, Ministers Matuke and Muswere are known staunch allies of President Mnangagwa, while the Zimbabwe Republic Police—which the newspaper overly relies on for comments—is mandated by the law to ensure law and order.

On rare occasions that the Daily News engaged sources outside Ministers Matuke, Muswere, and the police, it appeared to deliberately talk to those known to be aligned with ZANU-PF. These included the ZFTU. The ZFTU is known for its pro-government posture and is supportive of President Mnangagwa’s Vision 2030 agenda. The ZFTU founding president and former war veteran’s leader, Joseph Chinotimba, represented ZANU-PF as its legislator for Buhera South from 2023 to 2023 in a demonstration of close relations between the union and government. It is these voices that the Daily News recruited to rubber-stamp and amplify the government’s anti-protest narratives while denying the protesters space to articulate their grievances. This conscious, selective approach to newsgathering and reporting birthed biased narratives suggestive of its pro-government disposition. The Daily News ceased to be the alternative voice accommodating anti-regime voices, a departure indicative of capture by pro-state forces.

11. Discussion and Conclusions

The Daily News lost its neutrality in its coverage of the March 31 protests. How the media cover protests is of great importance, especially in polarized political environments. Wasserman et al. (2018, p. 147) posit that the media ought to “amplify the voices of those citizens left on the margins of the public sphere”. The Daily News generated narratives and discourses that denounced the protests, marking a major shift from its traditional editorial disposition on matters regarding the state and oppositional forces seeking regime change. This gravitation from oppositional to patriotic journalism is suggestive of the Daily News’ capture by pro-regime forces. Scholars argue that modern autocratic regimes such as ZANU-PF actively seek legitimation through media capture as opposed to blatant suppression, which happened in the past (Guriev & Treisman, 2019; Barnehl & Schumacher, 2024). This makes capture and control of mass media, especially the press that is viewed as oppositional by the government, like the Daily News, critical and strategic for regime survival.

The Daily News achieved this by routinely gathering news on the protests from sources that were clearly aligned with President Mnangagwa. The sources were not junior government officers but ministers responsible for safeguarding peace and information dissemination on behalf of the state. These fed the Daily News information that delegitimized the protests. They presented the protesters as rogue elements bent on destabilizing national peace and creating anarchy. In extreme cases, the Daily News’ sources dismissed the protests as foreign-sponsored and devoid of Zimbabwean-ness in a reincarnation of discourses on patriotic citizens and sell-outs characteristic of Mugabe’s rhetoric amid the Zimbabwe crisis. Interestingly, the Daily News’ stance on the protests seemed an imitation of how the state-controlled newspapers, The Herald and Chronicle, reported on the 2019 demonstrations. With their reports deriving from ZANU-PF sources, The Herald and Chronicle prescribed “standard of normative Zimbabwean-ness through the delegitimation of protests” (Vanyoro, 2020, p. 206). The Daily News stories are mainly derived from Ministers Matuke and Muswere. The police also dominated the Daily News’ reports. It ignored the voices of the protesters in the 11 stories it published. This is even though the protesters held press conferences in Harare, where the Daily News is headquartered. These were widely covered by other media houses, including newspapers under the Alpha Media Holdings, the publishers of another independent daily, the NewsDay. Media captured by the regime exhibit “biases that are currently believed to have significant effects on the audience’s perceptions” (Barnehl & Schumacher, 2024, p. 1540).

Whereas the protest paradigm perspective argues that the media are traditionally anti-protests (McLeod, 2007; Wasserman et al., 2018; Aldrete, 2024), this study contends that the Daily News does not fit this characterization. Since its establishment, it has ritually sought regime change through the generation of news that undermined ZANU-PF and promoted the ideological interests of oppositional forces. Such a stance saw some scholars brand the Daily News as an alternative media. But as shown in this study, the Daily News not only denied alternative voices a platform for expression but also adopted a pro-regime narrative, hence its legitimation. It not only lost its alternative media status but also showed symptoms associated with capture. As an alternative media in a landscape dominated by state-controlled press, the Daily News should have provided a democratic space for citizens to challenge the dominance of the state-controlled media. In the past, the Daily News had represented a “realm of debate and open discussion on common interest issues among citizens” (Maia, 2007, p. 70). It is beyond the scope of the current study to interrogate the dynamics of the Daily News’s capture. Future studies may consider interrogating the subtleties of the Daily News’s capture and its effect on the diversity of opinion and democracy in Zimbabwe. Such studies may globally examine the political economy of the media in post-Robert Mugabe Zimbabwe. This is important as President Mnangagwa’s government is on record publicly pledging media diversity and press freedom.