Origins and Rhodesia years, 1891–1980

Zimpapers traces its origins to 1891, when William Fairbridge, the Rhodesia representative of South Africa's Argus Printing and Publishing Company, established the Mashonaland Herald and Zambesian Times in Salisbury (now Harare).^[2][3] The Mashonaland Herald was succeeded by The Rhodesia Herald in 1892.^[2] The British South Africa Company Government Gazette was published between 1894 and 1923, initially as a supplement to The Herald.^[2] In 1893, the company established The Umtali Post in Umtali (now Mutare), followed in 1894 by The Bulawayo Chronicle in Bulawayo.^[2] In 1927, Argus spun off its Southern Rhodesia newspapers into a new company, the Rhodesian Printing and Publishing Company Limited.^[1][2] The company went public on the Rhodesia Stock Exchange on 8 March 1927.^[1][4] Argus gave up a majority of shares, but still held a controlling shareholding.^[3]

In the 1930s Sunday editions of The Herald and The Chronicle—The Sunday Mail and The Sunday News, respectively—were added through the inexpensive purchase of two existing weeklies bankrupted by the Great Depression.^[1][3] During these years, The Umtali Post was sold and later repurchased by Argus.^[3] During the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland period, Argus began publishing The Northern News in Ndola, Northern Rhodesia, but stopped after Zambia gained independence in 1964.^[3] The company's efforts to establish two other daily papers in Salisbury, the Evening Standard and The National Observer, also ended unsuccessfully in the early 1960s.^[3] Initially largely staffed by South Africans and Britons from the 1930s, senior positions in the Rhodesian Printing and Publishing Company began to be filled by native-born white Rhodesians in the 1960s.^[3] Only in the 1970s did the company see its first Rhodesian-born editors, and later its first Rhodesian-born managing director.^[3] Only in the 1970s did the company also begin hiring blacks for entry-level technical and journalist positions.^[3]

Zimpapers, 1980–present

When Zimbabwe gained independence in 1980, the Rhodesian Printing and Publishing Company was renamed Zimbabwe Newspapers (1980) Limited.^[1][3][4] In 1981, the Zimbabwean government, concerned about the foreign ownership of the country's newspapers, purchased a controlling 43-percent shareholding in the company from the Argus Group, using a grant from Nigerian government.^{[3][5][6][7][8]} The trust continued buying smaller amounts of shares and eventually acquired a 51-percent majority shareholding in 1986.^[3][6] In January 1981, the government established the Zimbabwe Mass Media Trust (ZMMT) to manage the Nigerian grant and to oversee Zimpapers through an independent board, to shield it from commercial and political influence.^[3][6][7][8] That year, information minister Nathan Shamuyarira told a meeting of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists, "We created the MMT so that the media would be in neutral hands and not business tycoons or the government—that would quash the free voice of journalists.^[6] The ZMMT appointed a new board of directors as well as new editors for the company's three biggest papers, The Herald, The Chronicle, and The Sunday Mail.^[3] After the acquisition, Argus offered guaranteed jobs in South Africa to former Zimpapers staff, leading to an exodus of whites from the company.^[3] The staff shortages that followed were addressed by the implementation of large-scale training and hiring programs.^[3] In addition, many vacant posts were filled by returning black Zimbabwean journalists and printers, particularly from Zambia, as well as by a small number of anti-apartheid South Africans, who arrived in the years after independence.^[3]

In 1984, Zimpapers took out a loan and purchased new color lithographic Printing presses, allowing the company's newspapers to publish in color.^[3] This was followed by the transition to phototypesetting in the late 1980s, and later to a digital production process in the 1990s.^[3] In 1986, the company launched its first indigenous-language newspaper, Kwayedza, published in Shona.^[1][3] An Ndebele-language paper, uMthunywa, followed in 2004.^[1][3] Zimpapers set up websites for its publications in the early 2000s.^[3] In 2004, the company partnered with Namibia-based New Era Newspapers to launch The Southern Times, a Southern African regional weekly circulating in Angola, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.^[1][3] In 2009–10, Zimpapers diversified its publication portfolio with the introduction of tabloid newspapers H-Metro and B-Metro in Harare and Bulawayo, respectively.^[3] The company purchased a full-color third generation lithographic press in 2013.^[3] Business Weekly, a business newspaper launched in 2017, is the latest addition to the Zimpapers portfolio.^[9]

After the Zimbabwean government opened the radio and television markets to private actors, Zimpapers applied for one of the first commercial radio licenses.^[1][3] In 2012, it launched the Harare-based Star FM. It has since launched other radio stations in Harare, Mutare, and Kariba.^[1][3] In 2014, Zimpapers reentered the television market with the launch of Zimpapers Television Network (ZTN), having previously been one of the leading early shareholders in Rhodesia Television before it was nationalized during Rhodesia's UDI years.^[1][3]