When she heard the news about the Courage Award in May 2002, she was 27 and about to leave Harare to study for a master’s degree in journalism at the City University of London.
Nyaira won the Courage Award partly in recognition for her Page One stories that had been dropped like bombshells on the government of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe. She had begun her reporting career five years earlier, first working for a chain of government-owned papers, and then at the state-run Zimbabwe Inter-Africa News Agency, where she won four national awards as well as a Reuters’ award. The Daily News editor in chief Geoffrey Nyarota hired her in 1999 and she rose to become Zimbabwe’s first woman political editor.
Inside the newsroom, however, there was some turmoil. Nyaira was dismayed to learn that she and another woman editor were paid far less than the men in the newsroom, including some deputy editors. They fought for equal pay, but, said Nyaira, “we did not win much, of course, our newsrooms being as patriarchal as they are.”
There were other salary problems. Nearly all reporters were poorly paid “as opposed to our bosses’ huge perks,” she said. Their salaries were even much lower than those paid to “drivers, cleaners and the general staff, most of whom turned out to be related to the bosses.”
When she arrived in the United States in October 2002 to accept her award, she was shocked to learn that her job had been given to a younger journalist. Nyarota, whom she says she still respects for his courage in leading the paper, never wrote to explain anything to her, until much later, after he was fired. He told her that he’d always intended to promote her when she returned from London.
Still, Nyaira was a force within Zimbabwe and the attacks on her from Mugabe aides proved it. She was devastated to learn that her job as political editor had been handed off to someone else while she was abroad. “This was a job I had done wholeheartedly and wanted to go back to it,” she said.
Not long after Nyaira heard that her job had been given to someone else, Nyarota was himself fired. And in September 2003, the government shut down the paper and arrested many of the reporters for working for an “illegal” publication, saying The Daily News had operated without certain permits. Most are now out on bail. But cases are pending against both Nyaira and Nyarota for “criminally defaming” Mugabe by writing and publishing stories critical of him. Nyarota is in exile in the United States.
And Nyaira is marooned in England.
Nyaira has stitched together freelance writing and broadcast freelance assignments. She said that winning the Courage in Journalism Award is the best thing that has happened in her life. “People acknowledge you. They look at you as someone who can do more. … Giving me that platform – it’s been a humbling experience. Exposure means a lot for a journalist like me,” she said, “and it’s been a great honor.”
People still send her story ideas, not realizing she has lost her job. “People I don’t even know would send me tips. You wonder where they get your e-mail address. Even though the paper has been shut down, I’ve been able to pass the stories on to my colleagues in sister publications.”
Some of them involve the Mugabe regime’s shortage of foreign currency and the resulting problems — including acute power shortages because the country can’t pay their debts to power suppliers in South Africa, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo. One story tip was that the government of Zimbabwe was trying to entice Ireland to come in and build another power plant.
Nyaira keeps her journalistic voice alive as a contributor to Voice of America, which broadcasts into Zimbabwe in three languages, English, Shona and Ndebele. “It is one of the most effective ways for ordinary Zimbabweans to get the truthful stories about what is happening around them,” she said.
She also writes on occasion for the [London] Times and British Journalism Review as well as a web-based publication, Africawoman.
Nyaira said she never really thought of herself as courageous when she was still going after those cutting-edge stories in Zimbabwe — even when older journalists warned her that she should stop taking so many risks.
Looking back at her reporting in Zimbabwe, she still has trouble thinking of herself as courageous. “I think there are many people in Zimbabwe who were more courageous than I … I had a byline and a daily newspaper that would come out with my story the next day. Most people I was interviewing didn’t have that protection.”
Nyaira is weighing her options. She finished her master’s degree in June and is thinking of writing a book on her experiences. “I have so many ideas in my head,” she said. Safety is an issue, though, because independent journalists remain targets in the current political climate. Still, she’s antsy to be able to work in her own country. Working for VOA “is not the same as waking up to a diary meeting, sitting with your colleagues in your own newsroom,” she said.
“I know that one day things will be well again in Zimbabwe and people like me will all be streaming back to do the jobs we love doing best — jobs we cannot do when we are living here in the diaspora,” she said.