{"id":524,"date":"2014-06-07T17:20:00","date_gmt":"2014-06-07T17:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mrmushava.wordpress.com\/2014\/06\/07\/recollections-of-journalism-in-the-line-of-fire\/"},"modified":"2026-10-25T14:37:05","modified_gmt":"2026-10-25T14:37:05","slug":"recollections-of-journalism-in-the-line-of-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=524","title":{"rendered":"Recollections of Journalism in the Line of Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Creatures at the Top<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
Book: Creatures at the Top<\/span><\/b><\/div>\n
Author: Stephen Mpofu<\/span><\/b><\/div>\n
Publisher: Spiderwize (2012)<\/span><\/b><\/div>\n
Stephen Mpofu belongs to that rare breed of Zimbabwe\u2019s pioneer journalists for whom the newsroom was a vocation not a default option.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Back in the day, journalism did not occur naturally on the inventory of professions available to blacks.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
By virtue of its location among the four estates of the realm, the colonial establishment hedged the newsroom out of the reach of blacks. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Perchance a \u2018native upstart\u2019 ventured in, he or she would be consigned to the mundane, the trivial and the peripheral. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Not so with Mpofu, if his riveting memoirs \u201cCreatures at the Top\u201d are anything to by.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
The elder scribe\u2019s autobiography is not only jam-packed with personal recollections but also with Zimbabwe\u2019s political history from the 1960s to the 2012.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Related undertakings such as Geoff Nyarota\u2019s \u201cAgainst the Grain: Memoirs of a Newsman\u201d have been short-circuited by critics for being big on self-aggrandisement and lax on historical rigour.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Mpofu\u2019s desists from an inflated account and, aside subjective hindsight, as can be expected of an autobiography, does not attempt to bend history into his corner.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
His principal achievement \u2013 since much of the nationalist history is recycled from the public domain \u2013 inheres in a modest perceptual aptitude.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
The events are exhaustively punctuated with moral justifications or reprisals. Mpofu comes across as a rigid adherent for integrity for much of the narrative bar one instance when he allows his house to be abused into an adulterous rendezvous by a base fellow who later turns out to be a Rhodesian operative.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cCreatures at the Top\u201d refer to that species which constitutes the bull\u2019s-eye of any media practitioner worth his or her salt.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
These are the politicians \u2013 custodians of power, arbiters of our national prospects \u2013 whose work ethic the journalists always summon to judgment and align to the mass interests at the base of the class pyramid.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
The title of the book is culled from President Robert Mugabe\u2019s 1989 BBC interview where he referred to some party leaders and Government officials as \u201ccreatures at the top out to amass wealth.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
There was need for the scribes, then as now, to scale up their normative billing and take these creatures to account.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Across the dispensations, before and after Independence, the country has bled profusely to gratify these ravening creatures. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
The story of journalism consists of sustained efforts to tame the creatures and keep them away from the dues of the masses. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
It is also an anticlimactic one as those mandated to man the Fourth Estate have been unduly cozy with power for the most part.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Mpofu worked in both dispensations, in and outside the country, espoused to nationalistic ideals and averse to ethical dysfunction in the profession.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
In 1961, a 19-year old Stephen, stood out of his village peers, determined to chart his course into the dizzy terrain called journalism.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Journalism presented the arsenal by which to dismantle the caste system of the day where one race was deified while another was dehumanised.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
What germinated as a mild inclination grew into a hardened resolve in the face of resistance.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
When a prospective sponsor, Bishop Albrekston, told him point blank that \u201cjournalism was a career for white people,\u201d Mpofu proposed a compromise whereby he would be given a \u201cblack wage\u201d just to pursue his heart.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
After further rejection, Mpofu decided that he would become a journalist anyhow and, rather than edit the racist congregation\u2019s pocket handkerchief publication, journalism would be his launchpad to nationalism. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cI would seek employment with bigger publications, or seek funding, team up with any other prominent African journalists to start a national newspaper whose objective would be to change the political order that subordinated blacks to other races in the country,\u201d resolved the penniless young dreamer.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
The ultimate turn of events evokes Frank Sinatra\u2019s observation that the best revenge is massive success. Orwell, Faulkner, and Golding feature among several notables whose work was rejected by prejudiced publishers. One dull publisher told Orwell that \u201cIt is impossible to sell animal stories the USA\u201d with reference to \u201cAnimal Farm.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Mpofu also defied rejection and went on to score a first as Zimpapers\u2019 first black news editor before holding a number of editorial portfolios at the company.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
The Mberengwa-born writer\u2019s determination to strut his stuff in the exclusively European domain also flourished as a result of the expectations assigned to him by the community subsequent to subsequent to his training in Zambia.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cI realised that the peasants somehow regarded my pen as some kind of magic wand I should have waved to open up vast tracts of \u2018European land\u2019 for them to move in and settle down there, with their newly wed children, building their own new homes and raising their own families on it and with enough cropping land available as well as abundant grazing land,\u201d Mpofu recounts.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Mpofu takes the reader through his adventures in Zambia where Zimbabweans had a love-hate relationship with the newly independent host to the north. The expats were accused of hiding in a free country and patronising hotels for chicken instead of going back home to fight Smith.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
However, Mpofu lauds Zambia, along with other countries, for its role in the liberation of other African countries. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda and Samora Machel are credited with running revolutionary relay races for Africa at no mean national sacrifices.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
The Pan-African sensibility which was fermenting during the epoch is what the continent needs now beyond mere window dressing.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Mpofu\u2019s 17-year stay in Zambia included brief stints in charge of papers that side where he was adamant on distinguishing news from political advocacy.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cPoliticians habitually claim that they, not journalists, are the voice of the people, while journalists content that they especially represent the voiceless majority,\u201d Mpofu notes.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
The apparent clash of functions can be resolved by observing that politics and the journalism are complimentary rather than exclusive and the latter\u2019s mandate to the people optimally requires the facilitatory and monitorial operations of the media.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cCreatures on the Top\u201d comes down on the top-down economics which made life unbearable for ordinary citizens back home in Zimbabwe in the late 1990s.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
The Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP) cost 32 000 people their jobs, created a budget deficit, and demanded charges for social welfare among other challenges.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Against the backdrop of mass penury, the creatures at the top were all out to amass as much perks as lay within their disposal, whatever the values at stake, as some of them are still doing decades on.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cAt home many other maggots joined creatures at the top in an orgy of celebrations followed by an open rat race for riches and the Leadership Code, already in its death throes, was sacrificed on the altar of self-aggrandisement,\u201d Mpofu laments.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
The grand old scribe, who has since retired to his Killarney home, has two novels \u201cShadows on the Horizon\u201d and \u201cZambezi Waters Run Still\u201d under his belt. Two more \u201cLittle Hearts Can Also Dance\u201d and \u201cThe Man with One Ear and One Eye\u201d are pending publication while \u201cGirl of the Orphanage\u201d is work in progress.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Creatures at the Top Book: Creatures at the Top Author: Stephen Mpofu Publisher: Spiderwize (2012) Stephen Mpofu belongs to that rare breed of Zimbabwe\u2019s pioneer journalists for whom the newsroom was a vocation not a default option. Back in the day, journalism did not occur naturally on the inventory of professions available to blacks. By virtue of its location among the four estates of the realm, the colonial establishment hedged the newsroom out of the reach of blacks. Perchance a \u2018native upstart\u2019 ventured in, he or she would be consigned to the mundane, the trivial and the peripheral. Not so with Mpofu, if his riveting memoirs \u201cCreatures at the Top\u201d are anything to by. The elder scribe\u2019s autobiography is not only jam-packed with personal recollections but also with Zimbabwe\u2019s political history from the 1960s to the 2012. Related undertakings such as Geoff Nyarota\u2019s \u201cAgainst the Grain: Memoirs of a Newsman\u201d have been short-circuited by critics for being big on self-aggrandisement and lax on historical rigour.\u00a0 Mpofu\u2019s desists from an inflated account and, aside subjective hindsight, as can be expected of an autobiography, does not attempt to bend history into his corner. His principal achievement \u2013 since much of the nationalist history is recycled from the public domain \u2013 inheres in a modest perceptual aptitude. The events are exhaustively punctuated with moral justifications or reprisals. Mpofu comes across as a rigid adherent for integrity for much of the narrative bar one instance when he allows his house to be abused into an adulterous rendezvous by a base fellow who later turns out to be a Rhodesian operative. \u201cCreatures at the Top\u201d refer to that species which constitutes the bull\u2019s-eye of any media practitioner worth his or her salt. These are the politicians \u2013 custodians of power, arbiters of our national prospects \u2013 whose work ethic the journalists always summon to judgment and align to the mass interests at the base of the class pyramid. The title of the book is culled from President Robert Mugabe\u2019s 1989 BBC interview where he referred to some party leaders and Government officials as \u201ccreatures at the top out to amass wealth.\u201d There was need for the scribes, then as now, to scale up their normative billing and take these creatures to account. Across the dispensations, before and after Independence, the country has bled profusely to gratify these ravening creatures. The story of journalism consists of sustained efforts to tame the creatures and keep them away from the dues of the masses. It is also an anticlimactic one as those mandated to man the Fourth Estate have been unduly cozy with power for the most part. Mpofu worked in both dispensations, in and outside the country, espoused to nationalistic ideals and averse to ethical dysfunction in the profession. In 1961, a 19-year old Stephen, stood out of his village peers, determined to chart his course into the dizzy terrain called journalism. Journalism presented the arsenal by which to dismantle the caste system of the day where one race was deified while another was dehumanised. What germinated as a mild inclination grew into a hardened resolve in the face of resistance. When a prospective sponsor, Bishop Albrekston, told him point blank that \u201cjournalism was a career for white people,\u201d Mpofu proposed a compromise whereby he would be given a \u201cblack wage\u201d just to pursue his heart. After further rejection, Mpofu decided that he would become a journalist anyhow and, rather than edit the racist congregation\u2019s pocket handkerchief publication, journalism would be his launchpad to nationalism. \u201cI would seek employment with bigger publications, or seek funding, team up with any other prominent African journalists to start a national newspaper whose objective would be to change the political order that subordinated blacks to other races in the country,\u201d resolved the penniless young dreamer. The ultimate turn of events evokes Frank Sinatra\u2019s observation that the best revenge is massive success. Orwell, Faulkner, and Golding feature among several notables whose work was rejected by prejudiced publishers. One dull publisher told Orwell that \u201cIt is impossible to sell animal stories the USA\u201d with reference to \u201cAnimal Farm.\u201d Mpofu also defied rejection and went on to score a first as Zimpapers\u2019 first black news editor before holding a number of editorial portfolios at the company. The Mberengwa-born writer\u2019s determination to strut his stuff in the exclusively European domain also flourished as a result of the expectations assigned to him by the community subsequent to subsequent to his training in Zambia. \u201cI realised that the peasants somehow regarded my pen as some kind of magic wand I should have waved to open up vast tracts of \u2018European land\u2019 for them to move in and settle down there, with their newly wed children, building their own new homes and raising their own families on it and with enough cropping land available as well as abundant grazing land,\u201d Mpofu recounts. Mpofu takes the reader through his adventures in Zambia where Zimbabweans had a love-hate relationship with the newly independent host to the north. The expats were accused of hiding in a free country and patronising hotels for chicken instead of going back home to fight Smith. However, Mpofu lauds Zambia, along with other countries, for its role in the liberation of other African countries. Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda and Samora Machel are credited with running revolutionary relay races for Africa at no mean national sacrifices. The Pan-African sensibility which was fermenting during the epoch is what the continent needs now beyond mere window dressing. Mpofu\u2019s 17-year stay in Zambia included brief stints in charge of papers that side where he was adamant on distinguishing news from political advocacy. \u201cPoliticians habitually claim that they, not journalists, are the voice of the people, while journalists content that they especially represent the voiceless majority,\u201d Mpofu notes. The apparent clash of functions can be resolved by observing that politics and the journalism are complimentary rather than exclusive and the latter\u2019s mandate to the people optimally requires the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-culture"],"yoast_head":"\nRecollections of Journalism in the Line of Fire | Blockspace<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=524\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Recollections of Journalism in the Line of Fire | Blockspace\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Creatures at the Top Book: Creatures at the Top Author: Stephen Mpofu Publisher: Spiderwize (2012) Stephen Mpofu belongs to that rare breed of Zimbabwe\u2019s pioneer journalists for whom the newsroom was a vocation not a default option. Back in the day, journalism did not occur naturally on the inventory of professions available to blacks. By virtue of its location among the four estates of the realm, the colonial establishment hedged the newsroom out of the reach of blacks. Perchance a \u2018native upstart\u2019 ventured in, he or she would be consigned to the mundane, the trivial and the peripheral. Not so with Mpofu, if his riveting memoirs \u201cCreatures at the Top\u201d are anything to by. The elder scribe\u2019s autobiography is not only jam-packed with personal recollections but also with Zimbabwe\u2019s political history from the 1960s to the 2012. Related undertakings such as Geoff Nyarota\u2019s \u201cAgainst the Grain: Memoirs of a Newsman\u201d have been short-circuited by critics for being big on self-aggrandisement and lax on historical rigour.\u00a0 Mpofu\u2019s desists from an inflated account and, aside subjective hindsight, as can be expected of an autobiography, does not attempt to bend history into his corner. His principal achievement \u2013 since much of the nationalist history is recycled from the public domain \u2013 inheres in a modest perceptual aptitude. The events are exhaustively punctuated with moral justifications or reprisals. Mpofu comes across as a rigid adherent for integrity for much of the narrative bar one instance when he allows his house to be abused into an adulterous rendezvous by a base fellow who later turns out to be a Rhodesian operative. \u201cCreatures at the Top\u201d refer to that species which constitutes the bull\u2019s-eye of any media practitioner worth his or her salt. These are the politicians \u2013 custodians of power, arbiters of our national prospects \u2013 whose work ethic the journalists always summon to judgment and align to the mass interests at the base of the class pyramid. The title of the book is culled from President Robert Mugabe\u2019s 1989 BBC interview where he referred to some party leaders and Government officials as \u201ccreatures at the top out to amass wealth.\u201d There was need for the scribes, then as now, to scale up their normative billing and take these creatures to account. Across the dispensations, before and after Independence, the country has bled profusely to gratify these ravening creatures. The story of journalism consists of sustained efforts to tame the creatures and keep them away from the dues of the masses. It is also an anticlimactic one as those mandated to man the Fourth Estate have been unduly cozy with power for the most part. Mpofu worked in both dispensations, in and outside the country, espoused to nationalistic ideals and averse to ethical dysfunction in the profession. In 1961, a 19-year old Stephen, stood out of his village peers, determined to chart his course into the dizzy terrain called journalism. Journalism presented the arsenal by which to dismantle the caste system of the day where one race was deified while another was dehumanised. What germinated as a mild inclination grew into a hardened resolve in the face of resistance. When a prospective sponsor, Bishop Albrekston, told him point blank that \u201cjournalism was a career for white people,\u201d Mpofu proposed a compromise whereby he would be given a \u201cblack wage\u201d just to pursue his heart. After further rejection, Mpofu decided that he would become a journalist anyhow and, rather than edit the racist congregation\u2019s pocket handkerchief publication, journalism would be his launchpad to nationalism. \u201cI would seek employment with bigger publications, or seek funding, team up with any other prominent African journalists to start a national newspaper whose objective would be to change the political order that subordinated blacks to other races in the country,\u201d resolved the penniless young dreamer. The ultimate turn of events evokes Frank Sinatra\u2019s observation that the best revenge is massive success. Orwell, Faulkner, and Golding feature among several notables whose work was rejected by prejudiced publishers. One dull publisher told Orwell that \u201cIt is impossible to sell animal stories the USA\u201d with reference to \u201cAnimal Farm.\u201d Mpofu also defied rejection and went on to score a first as Zimpapers\u2019 first black news editor before holding a number of editorial portfolios at the company. The Mberengwa-born writer\u2019s determination to strut his stuff in the exclusively European domain also flourished as a result of the expectations assigned to him by the community subsequent to subsequent to his training in Zambia. \u201cI realised that the peasants somehow regarded my pen as some kind of magic wand I should have waved to open up vast tracts of \u2018European land\u2019 for them to move in and settle down there, with their newly wed children, building their own new homes and raising their own families on it and with enough cropping land available as well as abundant grazing land,\u201d Mpofu recounts. Mpofu takes the reader through his adventures in Zambia where Zimbabweans had a love-hate relationship with the newly independent host to the north. The expats were accused of hiding in a free country and patronising hotels for chicken instead of going back home to fight Smith. However, Mpofu lauds Zambia, along with other countries, for its role in the liberation of other African countries. Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda and Samora Machel are credited with running revolutionary relay races for Africa at no mean national sacrifices. The Pan-African sensibility which was fermenting during the epoch is what the continent needs now beyond mere window dressing. Mpofu\u2019s 17-year stay in Zambia included brief stints in charge of papers that side where he was adamant on distinguishing news from political advocacy. \u201cPoliticians habitually claim that they, not journalists, are the voice of the people, while journalists content that they especially represent the voiceless majority,\u201d Mpofu notes. The apparent clash of functions can be resolved by observing that politics and the journalism are complimentary rather than exclusive and the latter\u2019s mandate to the people optimally requires the\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=524\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Blockspace\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-06-07T17:20:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-10-25T14:37:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/thumbs1.ebaystatic.com\/m\/mNn-FZ4ysL-WXD0I2PxTmQA\/140.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"hardsouth\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"hardsouth\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script 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Back in the day, journalism did not occur naturally on the inventory of professions available to blacks. By virtue of its location among the four estates of the realm, the colonial establishment hedged the newsroom out of the reach of blacks. Perchance a \u2018native upstart\u2019 ventured in, he or she would be consigned to the mundane, the trivial and the peripheral. Not so with Mpofu, if his riveting memoirs \u201cCreatures at the Top\u201d are anything to by. The elder scribe\u2019s autobiography is not only jam-packed with personal recollections but also with Zimbabwe\u2019s political history from the 1960s to the 2012. Related undertakings such as Geoff Nyarota\u2019s \u201cAgainst the Grain: Memoirs of a Newsman\u201d have been short-circuited by critics for being big on self-aggrandisement and lax on historical rigour.\u00a0 Mpofu\u2019s desists from an inflated account and, aside subjective hindsight, as can be expected of an autobiography, does not attempt to bend history into his corner. His principal achievement \u2013 since much of the nationalist history is recycled from the public domain \u2013 inheres in a modest perceptual aptitude. The events are exhaustively punctuated with moral justifications or reprisals. Mpofu comes across as a rigid adherent for integrity for much of the narrative bar one instance when he allows his house to be abused into an adulterous rendezvous by a base fellow who later turns out to be a Rhodesian operative. \u201cCreatures at the Top\u201d refer to that species which constitutes the bull\u2019s-eye of any media practitioner worth his or her salt. These are the politicians \u2013 custodians of power, arbiters of our national prospects \u2013 whose work ethic the journalists always summon to judgment and align to the mass interests at the base of the class pyramid. The title of the book is culled from President Robert Mugabe\u2019s 1989 BBC interview where he referred to some party leaders and Government officials as \u201ccreatures at the top out to amass wealth.\u201d There was need for the scribes, then as now, to scale up their normative billing and take these creatures to account. Across the dispensations, before and after Independence, the country has bled profusely to gratify these ravening creatures. The story of journalism consists of sustained efforts to tame the creatures and keep them away from the dues of the masses. It is also an anticlimactic one as those mandated to man the Fourth Estate have been unduly cozy with power for the most part. Mpofu worked in both dispensations, in and outside the country, espoused to nationalistic ideals and averse to ethical dysfunction in the profession. In 1961, a 19-year old Stephen, stood out of his village peers, determined to chart his course into the dizzy terrain called journalism. Journalism presented the arsenal by which to dismantle the caste system of the day where one race was deified while another was dehumanised. What germinated as a mild inclination grew into a hardened resolve in the face of resistance. When a prospective sponsor, Bishop Albrekston, told him point blank that \u201cjournalism was a career for white people,\u201d Mpofu proposed a compromise whereby he would be given a \u201cblack wage\u201d just to pursue his heart. After further rejection, Mpofu decided that he would become a journalist anyhow and, rather than edit the racist congregation\u2019s pocket handkerchief publication, journalism would be his launchpad to nationalism. \u201cI would seek employment with bigger publications, or seek funding, team up with any other prominent African journalists to start a national newspaper whose objective would be to change the political order that subordinated blacks to other races in the country,\u201d resolved the penniless young dreamer. The ultimate turn of events evokes Frank Sinatra\u2019s observation that the best revenge is massive success. Orwell, Faulkner, and Golding feature among several notables whose work was rejected by prejudiced publishers. One dull publisher told Orwell that \u201cIt is impossible to sell animal stories the USA\u201d with reference to \u201cAnimal Farm.\u201d Mpofu also defied rejection and went on to score a first as Zimpapers\u2019 first black news editor before holding a number of editorial portfolios at the company. The Mberengwa-born writer\u2019s determination to strut his stuff in the exclusively European domain also flourished as a result of the expectations assigned to him by the community subsequent to subsequent to his training in Zambia. \u201cI realised that the peasants somehow regarded my pen as some kind of magic wand I should have waved to open up vast tracts of \u2018European land\u2019 for them to move in and settle down there, with their newly wed children, building their own new homes and raising their own families on it and with enough cropping land available as well as abundant grazing land,\u201d Mpofu recounts. Mpofu takes the reader through his adventures in Zambia where Zimbabweans had a love-hate relationship with the newly independent host to the north. The expats were accused of hiding in a free country and patronising hotels for chicken instead of going back home to fight Smith. However, Mpofu lauds Zambia, along with other countries, for its role in the liberation of other African countries. Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda and Samora Machel are credited with running revolutionary relay races for Africa at no mean national sacrifices. The Pan-African sensibility which was fermenting during the epoch is what the continent needs now beyond mere window dressing. Mpofu\u2019s 17-year stay in Zambia included brief stints in charge of papers that side where he was adamant on distinguishing news from political advocacy. \u201cPoliticians habitually claim that they, not journalists, are the voice of the people, while journalists content that they especially represent the voiceless majority,\u201d Mpofu notes. The apparent clash of functions can be resolved by observing that politics and the journalism are complimentary rather than exclusive and the latter\u2019s mandate to the people optimally requires the","og_url":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=524","og_site_name":"Blockspace","article_published_time":"2014-06-07T17:20:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2026-10-25T14:37:05+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/thumbs1.ebaystatic.com\/m\/mNn-FZ4ysL-WXD0I2PxTmQA\/140.jpg","type":"","width":"","height":""}],"author":"hardsouth","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"hardsouth","Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=524#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=524"},"author":{"name":"hardsouth","@id":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/#\/schema\/person\/a336a678f28eacb341ce63c6b84b17d0"},"headline":"Recollections of Journalism in 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