STATE OF PRESS FREEDOM IN SOUTHERN AFRICA 2022 granted licences and of these only three have started operating on satellite television rather than on terrestrial platforms as required by the law. Questions have been raised on the ownership of the newly licensed radio and television stations, with the owners said to be either linked to the government or the governing Zanu PF party. One of the television stations, Zimpapers Television Network (ZTN) is owned by the government-controlled Zimbabwe Newspapers (Ltd) (Zimpapers). Zimpapers owns The Herald, Chronicle, The Sunday Mail, Sunday News and the only two local language newspapers Kwayedza and Umthunywa. This just serves to illustrate the government’s tentacles on the country’s media industry. The ownership and control of the private media is quite murky. This has given rise to a speculation that the media is captured by political elites which in turn generates different forms of self-censorship.(6) Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa 68 Studies on media capture in Zimbabwe have not been definitive and the absence of an indepth ownership survey is required as it is almost certain that the media is in the hands of a few who are linked to the ruling elite. This could be a classic case of plurality without diversity.(7) Realising that government control of private media is increasingly pervasive, a number of senior journalists have branched out and set up online investigative journalism start-ups. These start-ups are vibrant, but underresourced and lack the capacity to operate as sustainable and viable business models. INTERNET ACCESS AND AFFORDABILITY In 2022 the Postal and Telecommunications Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) reported that the internet penetration was 65.3 percent.