Mduduzi Mathuthu, the top editor at The Chronicle has been forced out of the flagship daily publication less than three years into the job, reportedly because of pro-Jonathan Moyo positions he had taken which annoyed president Mugabe .
Zimpapers yesterday transferred Mathuthu, to Namibia, in what sources see as a demotion and punishment for the way the paper covered some stories, particularly a story where Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa was implicated in making inflammatory statements during the Gukurahundi.
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According to Newsday ,Zimpapers chief executive officer, Pikirayi Deketeke flew to Bulawayo to deliver news to Mathuthu that he will be taking over the editorship of the Namibian based Southern Times, a joint venture between Zimpapers and a Namibian company.
Mathuthu who sought asylum in the UK over a decade ago before setting up the popular New Zimbabwe.com website, a rabidly anti-ZANU PF website based in England is on record saying that he is at The Chronicle to earn a salary and does not believe in any of the revolutionary party’s principles.
He was hired by Zanu PF spin doctor Jonathan Moyo who bounced back as Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Minister, following President Robert Mugabe’s controversial re-election in 2013.
In 2014 ,Mugabe criticised Prof Moyo for dismissing some editors in the public media and replacing them with MDC-T sympathisers.
““Ndiri kutaura izvi nekuti vese vakomana vakanga vakatungamirira mumaper vakatandwa kuchinotorwa veMDC vachiiswa kuti imi makati tonho muchifunga kuti tine munhu arikutiitira zvakanaka, the devil incarnate.”
Later in 2015, Goodson Nguni a Zanu PF apologist urged the ruling party to investigate Information Minister Jonathan Moyo for plotting against President Robert Mugabe and employing gay anti-government editors to run state owned newspapers.
Mathuthu was regarded by the system as security risks that should be plucked from Zimpapers.
Another reason cited was a story on suspended Prosecutor-General Johannes Tomana, whose fate was said to be in President Robert Mugabe’s hands, that was on the front-page of the daily.
“They questioned his editorial judgment and asked why it was on page one, yet in The Herald it was buried inside,” a source revealed.
Mathuthu also did not earn any friends following a story that ministers were involved in a verbal brawl over the science, technology, mathematics and engineering thrust being driven by the Higher Education ministry.
In his defence, Mathuthu said the story had been written by The Herald and his paper had taken it from there, the source revealed.
However, it was the Gukurahundi story that had Mathuthu in the crosshairs of his superiors and Information ministry officials.
Mathuthu’s deputy, Innocent Madonko takes over the editorship of the paper on an acting basis.
