This special volume is devoted to a selection of papers from the many that werepresented at the ‘Reporting Zimbabwe: Before and After 2000 Conference’ held on 25thFebruary 2005 at London’s Stanhope Centre, as part of the Africa Media Seriesorganized by the University of Westminster’s Communication and Media ResearchInstitute (CAMRI). The appetite for Zimbabwean news is demonstrated by, forexample, evidence presented at the conference which showed that of 48documentaries shown on BBC from November 2000 to January 2004, Zimbabwereceived the second most attention, with 7 documentaries. Zimbabwe came afterthe Israel/Palestine conflict which was covered by 16 documentaries. Zimbabwecame to dominate headlines in various UK and global media. Zimbabwe hadbecome such major global news story at the start of the new millennium, 1999-2005. The idea was to critically evaluate and investigate the ways in which local andglobal mass media were depicting the events in troubled Zimbabwe, a formerBritish colony that obtained independence in 1980. Attended by over 100 delegatesfrom different countries and continents, the conference succeeded in bringingtogether critical interdisciplinary analyses of the role of the mass media in the ongoingdemocratic and social- justice struggles in today’s Zimbabwe. The variouspapers presented at the conference, and those in this volume, dealt with diversethemes ranging from the rise of patriotic journalism in Zimbabwe and mediafreedom struggles to the definition, character and representation of the ‘land issue’,and more broadly the ‘Zimbabwe crisis’ in African and international media. Theparticipants included British and Zimbabwean politicians, government officials,students, journalists, academics, activists, civic groups and members of the Britain-Zimbabwe Society (BZS).