IN THE PRESS

NAZI Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels is known throughout history as a perfectionist in the “art of propaganda”.

Never mind his bidding at the time; critics and admirers alike were and are still drawn to his craft to the point of becoming his secret protégés.

He would have been mighty disappointed, though, with last Friday’s issue of the Zimbabwe Independent newspaper in which some of his less adept protégés made a stark mockery and mimicry of the dark art with the article, “Snooping intensifies amid factional wars”.

The piece was laughable, to be charitable.

In one instance, we are told State security agents made “senior ZANU-PF and Government officials jittery and wary . . . as the battle to succeed President Robert Mugabe intensifies”.

In the next, we were introduced to a faceless member of Cabinet as the source of the story.

Now, if that is not ludicrous, then what else constitutes oafish matter?

Surely if security agents are snooping on top State officials, it, therefore, follows that our dear camouflaged member of Cabinet is a member of that rank.

And if he/she is part of the snooping targets, he/she should be “jittery and wary of his/her communication, habits and movements”.

The question is: How come the good member of Cabinet shook off the “jitters” and cast all “wariness” to the wind just to get that piece of information to the Zimbabwe Independent?

Goebbels will tell you that the dark arts need no somnambulists.

One of his immortalised lines goes: “If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself.”

The poor scribe and his source must have repeated their lies for far too long and ended up thinking everyone else was just as gullible.

Goebbels sneers at such shoddy craft. At best, his oft-indifferent countenance could have broken into a wince given his disposition to stoicism.