HARARE – Elias Mambo, editor of the online publication Zim Morning Post is being sued for defamation by owners of The Daily News who are demanding Z$10 million in damages over an article linking them to controversial businessman Kudakwashe Tagwirei.
Jethro Goko and wife Esther say Mambo and fellow journalist Fani Papfumo tarnished their image by insinuating that they were captured by Tagwirei and Zanu PF after their company Jester Media (Pvt) Ltd was awarded a free-to-air television broadcasting licence.
Headlined “Tagwirei Pockets Daily News,” the article ran in a newsletter published by the respondents on November 24, 2020.
“Zim Morning Post can report that Tagwirei through his stake in the CBZ bankrolled Modus Media (Pvt) Limited, the vehicle used by The Daily News in its application for the free-to-air TV license,” the article claimed.
The story also said that the newspaper’s new “pro-government editorial policy coupled with Tagwirei’s influence appears to have catapulted the publication’s TV application to land one of six slots on offer.”
The Gokos hit back in summons now before the High Court, arguing the claims were damaging.
“The said words in the context of the article are wrongful and defamatory of plaintiffs in that they were intended and were understood by readers of the Zim Morning Post Newsletter to mean that the plaintiffs are dishonest in one or more of the following way; they had been corruptly bankrolled by Kuda Tagwirei in securing a free-to-air television licence,” reads the summons filed by Modus Media and Jester Media, both owned by Goko and his wife.
Apart from the defamatory nature of the article, the Gokos said, an impression was made that “the plaintiffs are corrupt, unprofessional, not independent media practitioners, without moral fibre, government parrots instead of being independent media practitioners, sly sneaky, unscrupulous and devious”
The matter is pending.
