The Daily News has dispelled media reports that Zimbabweans Mogul Kuda Tagwirei acquired a stake in a company that publishes the Daily News, The Daily News reports.
According to the publication, online media had claimed that Tagwirei bought the Daily News:
In its e-paper yesterday, the Zim Morning Post also claimed that Tagwirei is a shareholder in Modus Media the publisher of the iconic and market leading business newspaper, The Financial Gazette.
Similarly, the paper also claimed that Tagwirei is a shareholder in Jester Media Services, the owners of the newly licensed 3K television station. This is simply not true.
Rather embarrassingly too, the paper also claimed that Modus Media is owned by Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe the publisher of the Daily News. This is false.
Rather ridiculously, Zim Morning Post further claimed that “the Daily News’ application (presumably for a TV licence) coincided with a radical shift in the publications (sic) editorial policy” — adding, for good measure, that “The pro-government policy coupled with Tagwirei’s influence appears to have catapulted the publications’ TV licence application to land one of six slots on offer”.
This is false and defamatory, as it suggests that Jester Media Services won its openly and transparently tendered TV licence through devious and corrupt methods.
The publication dismissed these reports and said Jester Media Services, Modus Media and 3K TV are owned by one family and claimed by ZimMorning Post that Jester Media Services won its TV license tendered publicly through devious and corrupt methods is defamatory.
A spokesperson for the stakeholders affected by the alleged false reports denied even doing business with Tagwirei at any point and said:
Neither the shareholders nor the directors of Jester Media Services, Modus Media and ANZ (which publishes the Daily News) have ever met, let alone had any business or social dealings with Mr Tagwirei. The malicious intentions by those peddling all these falsehoods are clear, and this is to impact negatively on the concerned businesses.
A clear demonstration of this co-ordinated malice is that none of those who have written all these false stories have ever attempted to verify their misplaced claims with us. But it will be well,” a spokesperson for the shareholders said.
Because the Zim Morning Post story went beyond the boundaries of incompetence and erroneous reportage, legal action will be taken against it. The extreme fascination with our businesses is a source of major mystery for us, with many people, especially journalists who should know these things seemingly keen to donate shareholders to us,
Source: the Daily News