ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses press coverage or lack thereof of the forced removals of these African communities in the establishment press and the church press. It seeks to ascertain how the RPP’s The Rhodesia Herald managed to continue toeing the editorial line of serving the interests of the white settler community without compromising on the basic tenets of professional news gathering in covering these selected cases of forced removals and how the church press targeting an African readership differed in its own approach to covering the same issues. Many scholars have pointed to similarities and policy convergences in the legal systems of the settler colonies of southern and central Africa. The Rhodesia Herald’s presentation of government’s second attempt to forcibly evict the Tangwena people from Gaeresi is dressed in legalistic language in a symbolic process that legitimised government position.
