The Zimbabwe Times Review

The Zimbabwe Times is one amongst the leading independent online publications on Zimbabwe. The paper publishes online from the United States of America. It is critical of the government of Zimbabwe led by Robert Mugabe. Most of the paper's stories expose the government of Zimbabwe specifically targeting the ZANU PF side of government in the coalition power sharing government.

 Apart from reporting on political news, the online publication also carries stories on sports, health and business in addition to public opinion via a vibrant team of bloggers. The Zimbabwe Times tag line is "News without fear or favour" perhaps revealing the character of its founder and managing editor Mr Geoffrey Nyarota [pictured].

Geoff as his is affectionately known in Zimbabwe and across the journalism world ironically once worked for Zimpapers with the Herald in Zimbabwe in the early 1980s before becoming the editor of the Chronicle in Bulawayo where he was eventually fired for unearthing what became known in Zimbabwe as the Willogate. This involved corruption in government at the highest level involving cars assembled by the state owned Willovale Motors in Harare.

 A few years before launching The Zimbabwe Times in 2006, Nyarota also worked for the first independent daily paper in Zimbabwe called The Daily News. He was the founding editor and was arrested several times by the government. Geoff once published a story which was later found to be untrue about a beheading at the height of Zimbabwe's land inversions violence. The Daily News was subsequently closed before he fled to the United States were the online publication was started.

 The online publication is run by a dedicated team of technicians and sub-editors and receives one of the highest levels of traffic on the Internet on Zimbabwe news related content. No statistics are available to the public about the site's actual traffic, it also lacks any Alexa data which makes real traffic estimates very difficult. However judging by the levels of participation via comments on stories, The Zimbabwe Times receives significant amount of traffic daily. The paper has also claimed attacks on its website by suspected Zimbabwe government agents even though some of the technical problems facing the site have been legitimate.

The following are some of the headlines that have appeared on the paper.

• MDC has joined conspiracy of silence
• Tsvangirai speaks as if fearful of Mugabe
• Gutu magistrate cleared of corruption
• Embattled cleric denies supporting gays
• Soldier jailed 35 years for arms theft

The Zimbabwe Times is amongst online publications such as New Zimbabwe.com and Zimdaily.com that the government of Zimbabwe considers illegal papers. However, controlling them is virtually impossible as Internet access in Zimbabwe is not regulated as obtains in China even though the government once drafted a law along these lines.