Harare — Investigative journalist Edmund Kudzai has accused The Herald of systematically manipulating its coverage to protect businessman Kenneth Sharpe and his associated companies, alleging a years-long pattern of media capture designed to delegitimise Sharpe’s critics while shielding damaging information from the public.
In a detailed report published this week, Kudzai outlines what he describes as “a 276-article ecosystem” in which The Herald consistently casts Sharpe as a visionary developer while framing opponents, including legislators and business partners, as liars, saboteurs or criminals. The analysis, covering 2018 to 2025, alleges that the State-owned newspaper abandoned basic journalistic norms to advance a single commercial narrative.
Kudzai’s investigation began after his own exposé on a Supreme Court judgment involving Augur Investments OÜ — a company he says was legally dissolved in Estonia before securing the ruling. Following the publication, The Herald ran a series of articles labelling him a fugitive, claims he says were fabricated. “This was not journalism,” he wrote. “It was defensive warfare.”
According to his audit, nearly three-quarters of all Herald stories mentioning developer George Katsimberis were written by a single correspondent and carried overwhelmingly criminalising language — often without qualifiers such as “alleged” or “accused.” Katsimberis, who has been repeatedly portrayed as a fraudster, is in fact the victim of a $15 million expropriation scheme, Kudzai argues, citing High Court records.
The report highlights what Kudzai calls “the negative space” in the newspaper’s coverage: crucial developments that The Herald never reported. These include the collapse of the State’s case against Katsimberis after its star witness, Michael Van Blerk, conceded under cross-examination that the complainant had no legal standing. The newspaper also did not cover a High Court ruling ordering a retrial for Van Blerk on separate fraud allegations, or charges that court transcripts were doctored in Katsimberis’ criminal matter.
By contrast, Kudzai notes, Sharpe-linked entities consistently received glowing coverage, with their claims treated as fact and critics framed as malicious actors.
The findings, he concludes, amount to “statistically impossible deviations from journalistic norms” and point to deliberate editorial capture. “The Herald has ceased to function as a newspaper,” he writes. “It has become the public relations division of a private prosecution cartel.”
Neither The Herald nor WestProp had issued a response to the allegations at the time of publication.
