(MISA/IFEX) – On 31 May 2001, broadcaster Margaret Kriel was fired from the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) after airing an interview about Israel. Her thirty-minute programme “Morning Mirror” was stopped on the air without any explanation. Kriel, who has yet to receive her official dismissal letter, was asked to leave the corporation by Radio One […]
(MISA/IFEX) – On 31 May 2001, broadcaster Margaret Kriel was fired from the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) after airing an interview about Israel. Her thirty-minute programme “Morning Mirror” was stopped on the air without any explanation.
Kriel, who has yet to receive her official dismissal letter, was asked to leave the corporation by Radio One Head Patu Manala.
The Thursday programme of “Morning Mirror” featured Zimbabwean-born Freda Keet, a journalist and war correspondent for the Hol Yisroel, the Voice of Israel Broadcasting Authority in Jerusalem. Another interview was with Doug Bramsen, a Bulawayo pharmacist and Bulawayo Theatre Club chairperson, who had recently returned from a conference in Israel.
The ZBC has confirmed firing Kriel. “This was necessitated by her continued negative attitude towards work and deliberate flouting of (the) corporation’s policy,” remarked ZBC Public Relations Officer Richard Mlambo. “On numerous occasions we had to pull her programmes off the air for lack of balance.”
Kriel, who has been working in broadcasting for thirty-two years, told the “Zimbabwe Independent” in Bulawayo that she had edited out all content that could have been construed as controversial when she sent the material a week in advance for clearance in Harare.
“At no time was it intended to be a discussion of a political nature,” she said. “I was told by Manala that Radio One was not a ‘platform for public relations for Israel’, that the programme should have been more balanced….Manala went on to say that this sort of programme was not welcome on Radio One, and that in fact my programmes are not welcome on radio at all.”
