Veteran editor Bill Saidi, who once worked as an Assistant Editor for
the banned Daily News newspaper, has been offered the job of Deputy
Editor in Chief at the state owned Herald newspaper, writes Lance Guma for SW Radio Africa.
Saidi also worked for publisher Trevor Ncube’s Zimbabwe Standard newspaper, but retired in 2008. He is effectively being tempted out of retirement to come and join a paper long associated with the brutal regime of Mugabe.
The offer has ignited a fire of speculation around the intentions of the newspaper in approaching a long time critic of Mugabe. Some commentators say it might be an attempt to try and rescue the discredited paper and enable it to compete against the new daily newspapers that are planned.
There are reports the new coalition government, through the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee, is demanding greater professionalism from the state owned papers. But whether Saidi will ever be allowed any editorial independence is another matter, particularly as Pikirayi Deketeke, a ZANU PF blue-eyed boy, remains editor.
Click here to read the full report, posted on SW Radio Africa's webbsite.