ABSTRACT
Competition coming from rival weekly newspapers and monthly magazines only offered a very feeble challenge to The Herald’s status as the primary definer of the socio-political realities in Zimbabwe. The newspaper had continued in this role of offering apprenticeship, even beyond the time when the first journalism training programme was established at the Harare Mass Communication Institute and later at other private colleges and universities. Editorial autonomy at almost all newspapers under the Zimpapers stable was increasingly getting eroded and undermined by government interference. The editor of The Herald was relieved of his duties on 31 August 2000 for criticising land invasions in an editorial comment. Famine, economic decline and any social and political condition in Zimbabwe had to be re-imagined through the lenses of the fast track land reform.
