Posted on 12/30/2002 6:56:18 AM PST by Clive
HARARE - The award-winning editor- in-chief of Zimbabwe's leading independent daily newspaper, the Daily News, resigned on Monday as a strike at the paper entered its tenth day.
Geoff Nyarota said he had handed in his resignation "in the interests of the Daily News" but gave no specific reason for his decision to leave.
The resignation comes as the paper, the most widely read in the country, failed for the 10th consecutive day to appear on the streets due to a strike over salaries by journalists.
Earlier, state-run ZBC radio reported that Nyarota had been fired "for siding with workers in the ongoing industrial action" but Nyarota dismissed the report.
The Daily News, which is highly critical of President Robert Muagbe's government, has a readership of more than two million - the highest in the country, according to a recent survey. Its closest competitor, the state- controlled Herald, has a readership of 1.9 million.
Nyarota, who has been arrested on several occasions and also won numerous awards for journalism and press freedom, said it had not been an easy decision to resign from the paper he helped to found in 1999. "It was not an easy decision. It breaks my heart," he said.
Meanwhile, the strike at the paper looked set to continue. "There doesn't seem to be any breakthrough in the impasse," said Nyarota.
The Daily News strike and Nyarota's resignation come as many of the country's independent journalists await a decision due this month by the government's media commission on who will be registered to work in the country under tough press laws passed after Mugabe was re-elected in March.
AFP
With the incredible inflation of the Zim currency it's understandable that the journalists want a raise. But how exactly did they think this award-winning editor could give them a big enough raise in these times, when the price of newspapers has now been frozen? The best media voice of dissent in the madhouse that's called Zimbabwe just took a major loss.
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