Zimbabwe has first independent daily

Independent daily NewsDay appeared on the streets of Zimbabwe for the first time on 4 June. It is the first independent daily in the country since the Daily News was forced to close in 2003.

The Times in London described the launch as "the most significant accomplishment of the power-sharing Government between President Mugabe and the Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, to carry out democratic reforms. It ends seven years of a state-enforced monopoly by The Herald, the propaganda broadsheet devoted to Mr Mugabe and his party." Read the full article here.

The launch of NewsDay happened within days of the Zimbabwe Media Commission announcing on 26 May that Alpha Media Holdings (AMH) was to receive a licence to publish the paper. Four licences were granted - to Daily News, NewsDay, Gazette and Mail. AMH was the first to publish.

The paper's publication follows more than a year of delays in issuing the licence, first in appointing the Zimbabwe Media Commission, then in the Commission granting licences. The delays were due to the reluctance of Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party, which rules in coalition with the Movement for Democratic Change, to allow an independent daily newspaper to publish in Zimbabwe.

AMH is partly owned by Zimbabwean Trevor Ncube who publishes South Africa's Mail & Guardian, an existing MDLF client known for its investigative journalism.

MDLF has provided AMH with financing to launch NewsDay and to set up a printing house in Harare, which opened in October 2009.