The Herald remains in pole position - survey

24 Aug 2012

The Herald remains the leading newspaper in Zimbabwe, widely-read by people from across the political divide, a survey commissioned by Freedom House, a US non-governmental organisation has revealed.

According to the survey, the other dailies and weeklies trail by a huge margin. The survey results are contained in a report titled "Change and 'New' Politics in Zimbabwe" released recently.

A local research institute, Mass Public Opinion Institute, conducted the research on behalf of Freedom House.

The survey noted that newspapers constitute an important source of news on politics and public life for 50% of the population, although readership has been affected by financial constraints.

The results reveal that this year,The Herald leads the way with 23% followed by Daily News with 7%, NewsDay and Chronicle with 5% each and The Sunday Mail with 4%.

Another survey conducted in 2010 showed a similar trend with The Herald at the top with 17%, NewsDay 7%, Chronicle 6%, Zimbabwe Independent 3% and Sunday Mail 2%.

The results reveal that The Herald remains the most-trusted source of information.

The survey revealed that there was not much differentiation in the sources of news by supporters of political parties in Zimbabwe.

The latest survey also showed that The Herald's online edition is one of the most visited sites, with 3% while NewZimbabwe.com, NewsDay, Zimbabwe Situation and Daily News are all trailing with 1% each of the population interviewed.

Freedom House was set up in the US city of New York in 1941 with the support of the then president Franklin D Roosvelt to mobilise support for the US intervention in World War 2.

Its members were mainly drawn from the cross section of US society and the two major political parties, the Democrats and the Republicans.

It has, however, been accused of promoting American interests in foreign lands.

The results of the Freedom House survey are in tandem with those from the latest Zimbabwe All Media Products Survey released in March in which The Herald led its competitors by a wide margin.

According to the Zamps survey, The Herald had almost twice as many readers as its nearest competitor.

The results showed that The Herald had 35% readership of all urban Zimbabweans aged over 15.

Its two main competitors NewsDay and Daily News had a market share of 26% and 21% respectively.

The Zamps survey showed that 1 857 004 people read The Herald in the final quarter of 2011 way above the 973 930 for second-placed NewsDay.

The Herald's Harare tabloid stablemate, H-Metro was placed third with 965 028 readers while Daily News slipped into fourth place with 926 640 readers.

Source: allAfrica