This study investigates the complex role editorials – a newspaper's institutional voice – play in highly-polarised political contexts. Employing Van Dijk's insight that editorials "are usually not only, and even not primarily, directed at the common reader: rather they tend to directly or indirectly address influential news actors" (1992: 244), the study focuses on how the editorials of two Zimbabwean daily newspapers – The Herald, a perceived pro-government newspaper, and NewsDay, a perceived pro-opposition newspaper – speak to those in power. The study looks at these two newspapers' editorials from 1 June to 31 December 2013, which covers the period prior to, during and after the 2013 national elections. The 31 July, 2013 elections took place after four years of an uneasy government of national unity (GNU), which comprised ZANU-PF and the two MDC formations (Raftopoulos, 2013:978). Given the polarisation that is pervasive in the Zimbabwean politics and media, the study draws on Hallin and Mancini (2004)'s "Polarised Pluralist Model". In this model the media are used as instruments of struggle in conflicts, sometimes by dictatorships and by movements struggling against them, but also by contending parties in periods of democratic politics (Hallin and Mancini, 2004:61). Further, the methodological approach that informs this study is primarily qualitative. A qualitative content analysis of 30 editorials seeks to identify themes covered in the editorials. The study also employs a rhetorical analysis of 12 editorials and in-depth interviews and these form the adopted three-stage research design. The findings of this research somewhat contradict the common view in Zimbabwe that the privately-owned media blindly support the opposition while the stateowned media do the same to ZANU-PF (Chari, 2009:10; Mabweazara, 2011:110). Although The Herald openly supported ZANU-PF prior to the election, it shifted after the election as it pushed the ruling party to fulfill pledges made on the campaign trail. Some ZANU-PF officials were also censured by The Herald, although this selective criticism can be linked to factionalism in the party. NewsDay editorials reminded the newly formed government to mend the economy and provide basic services. While, the daily constantly censured Mugabe and ZANU-PF prior to the election, it also occasionally berated the MDC, which can be attributed to its participation in the GNU as that took away the privilege it previously had of not being hold accountable by the press.

The media, which help define what we think and our roles in the society, have a crucial role to project both men and women’s issues so as to change people’s perceptions and stereotypes about the role men and women play in the society. There is need, therefore, to ensure gender equality in the operations of the media so that issues to do with both men and women get adequate and equal coverage. This study on the reportage of the land redistribution exercise in Zimbabwe has, however, exposed the gendered nature of the operations of the media, particularly in the news production process. It provides that, overally, the news discourse is a masculine narrative whose androcentric form is a result of, and is protected by, claims to ‘objectivity,’ ‘professionalism’, ‘impartiality’ and the pursuit of a journalistic routine system that hegemonically prioritises men’s issues over those of women. The situation, as the research shows, has not been helped by journalists’ incapacity to do thematic appreciation of issues and their over-inclination towards a simplistic event-based journalism that fails to question policies as they are enacted and implemented in gender-skewed processes. The lack of gender policies, the operations of patriarchy and the pursuit of a journalistic routine system that sees nothing wrong with the ostracisation of women issues are very fundamental findings that the research uses in its attempts to explain why the gender equality discourse was left out of the news reports about the land reform exercise in Zimbabwe.