Thread by @NewsHawksLive

After The NewsHawks' recent social media threads shedding light with facts, context and background on how publisher Trevor Ncube joined President Emmerson Mnangagwa's advisory panel and quit, media colleagues like Zimbabwe Independent editor Faith Zaba became collateral damage.

Zaba (she was collateral damage on the photo below), a friend of The NewsHawks journalists, wrote in today's Independent about her struggles as a female journalist to rise to the top, her commitment to editorial independence, journalism ethics and professional reporting.

Female journalists in Zimbabwe usually have to overcome many hurdles to rise, including dealing with patriarchal, structural and gender inequalities, besides discrimination and sexual harassment. The NewsHawks is involved in a number of female journalists empowerment initiatives.

Zaba suggests she has been under siege from colleagues and other people whondont want her. We fully support her as we have always done in thr past.
We're aware of current attempts by her colleagues to remove her on the grounds of alleged lack of capacity and not coming to work.

There is no doubt that Zaba is a great journalist who has over nearly three decades consistently and persistently distinguished herself. Her track record, as she days herself in today's editor's memo, speaks for itself.

We can relate to all what she is saying as more than anyone else in the media industry today, journalists at The NewsHawks helped to bring her to the Independent against internal resistance, supported her rise and created a pathway for her to the top over a period of 13 years.

However, having said that The NewsHawks will continue to raise and shed light on how Ncube lost his professional journalism ethics and campass, ended up working as Mnangagwa's publicity tsar with other viziers drawn from business, academia and professional realm after the coup.

Against this background, The NewsHawks will not engage on strawman or fallacious arguments, obfuscation or smokescreen manoeuvres.
We will continue raise these critical issues of public interest - why Ncube joined and quit the regime, while compromising editorial independence.

The Ncube story is of huge public interest given how he fought for media freedom and democratic rights before abandoning the struggle to join the regime in pursuit of power, influence and money, while trampling on editorial independence, quality journalism and readers' interests

Ncube failed the enlightened self-interest test; people who act to further the interests of others, ultimately serve their own self-interest.
It is often simply expressed ,by saying an individual, group, or commercial entity (media here) will do well by doing good, not by greed.

We'll not be deterred from our work in public interest journalism by those who want to construct smokescreens to protect partisan media owners dabbling in politcs or become their shock absorbers or dampers, while ignoring raping of reporting ethics and brazen media capture.

Prostituting journalism for power, money and influence - which is unenlightened self-interest and greed - should never be tolerated by all those who want to see professional, ethical and credible quality reporting tremendously thrive in Zimbabwe and elsewhere in the media realm.

This is the crux of the matter and the real issue in the Ncube saga - that is how he tried to capture the editorial of Alpha Media Holdings newspapers for personal, partisan agendas and self-aggrandisement, not media gender issues raised.
Anything else is clear obfuscation.

Trying to gaslight readers through emotional manipulation of gender issues we are all seized with while ignoring a brazen attempt by a media owner to capture the editorial for personal agendas will not find purchase and traction with serious observers or those who know the truth.