Journalist Geoffrey Nyarota,who founded Zimbabwe’s influential independent newspaper The Daily News and was a courageous champion for press freedom in his country, died of colon cancer on March 22, 2025. He was 74.
Nyarota led investigations that often drew the ire of Zimbabwe’s government and forced him into exile. Throughout his career, he remained dedicated to exposing corruption and uncovering truths.
Born in 1951 in Harare, Nyarota was a teacher before beginning his journalism career in 1978 at The Rhodesia Herald. He was one of the first Black trainees hired there before Zimbabwe’s independence. In 1983, he became editor of The Chronicle, a daily in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second largest city.
In 1989, he gained national recognition due to his Chronicle investigation of the Willowgate scandal, which revealed corruption involving senior government officials in President Robert Mugabe’s administration. Several ministers resigned and another committed suicide after the reports were published. Nyarota subsequently lost his own job at the government-run paper.
He then became editor of the Financial Gazette, a weekly business and financial newspaper, but once again lost his job because of government pressure. He soon left the country to teach journalism in South Africa and Mozambique.
Fighting corruption and a new life in exile
After returning to Zimbabwe in 1999, Nyarota founded The Daily News, the country’s only independent daily newspaper at the time. Its reporting on corruption and human rights abuses made it the most widely read paper in the country.
As a result of the paper’s coverage, the Daily News’ offices were bombed in 2000 and 2001. Nyarota himself was arrested multiple times and received death threats. By the end of 2002, he was forced out as editor as part of a campaign by President Robert Mugabe’s government to stifle criticism from independent news outlets and was forced to flee Zimbabwe for his own safety.
Bob Giles, Nieman curator at the time, explained what happened next: “In January 2003, we met Geoff Nyarota, the founder and editor of The Daily News in Zimbabwe. The government had orchestrated his firing as editor, then sent Zimbabwean police in a raid on his home, hoping to arrest him. Geoff and his family narrowly escaped across the border to South Africa. After a brief exile there, and with help from the Committee to Protect Journalists, he found sanctuary as a member of that Nieman class.”
Nyarota was one of the few journalists who had the distinction of belonging to two Nieman classes: He joined the class of 2003 in the spring of that year and remained at Harvard to study during the fall as a member of the Nieman class of 2004.
Zimbabwe’s government shut down The Daily News in September 2003.
After his Nieman fellowship, Nyarota was a joint fellow with the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and the Joan Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School.
Remaining in the United States, Nyarota edited an online paper, The Zimbabwe Times, which featured reports by journalists in Zimbabwe.
He returned home in 2010 and in 2011, he set up Buffalo Communication PL, a new magazine publishing company. In 2013, he led a commission examining the state of the media in Zimbabwe.
Nyarota received numerous awards for his work. In 2001, he was awarded a Knight International Press Fellowship Award and the International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists. In 2002, he was honored with the World Association of Newspapers’ Golden Pen of Freedom Award and UNESCO’s Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize.
He was the author of three books including “Against the Grain, Memoirs of a Zimbabwean Newsman” (2006); “The Graceless Fall of Robert Mugabe: The End of a Dictator’s Reign” (2018); and “The Honourable Minister: An Anatomy of Endemic Corruption” (2022).
Nyarota is survived by his wife and three children.
Learn more about Nyarota’s legacy and influence on quality journalism in Zimbabwe from 2020 Nieman Fellow Obey Martin Manayiti in Nieman Reports.
Additional reading
Deposed Editor of Zimbabwe’s Lone Independent Newspaper Named Nieman Fellow
Geoff Nyarota, a journalist forced to flee Zimbabwe after he was removed as the editor of the nation's only independent newspaper, has been appointed a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.
Zimbabwean journalist Nyarota finds sanctuary at Harvard
Years of uncovering corruption brought threats, arrest
Nieman Foundation Announces U.S. and International Fellows for 2003-04
Thirteen U.S. journalists and 12 international journalists were appointed to the 66th class of Nieman Fellows at Harvard University.
In Nieman Reports:
In Zimbabwe, Courage Is the Journalist’s Companion
‘What Mugabe did not want the press to report was how he was using systematic state torture and violence against blacks opposed to his rule.’
By Andrew Meldrum
What we share about courage
By Bob Giles (curator column)
Africa Through the Eyes of African Reporters
If local journalists reported more of the news to Western audiences, their sources and the story’s context would be different.
By Geoffrey Nyarota
The Government Silenced Zimbabwe’s Only Independent Newspaper
‘Revealing the facts about their corruption and mismanagement really makes bad rulers mad.’
By Yvonne van der Heijden
Courageous Zimbabwean Editor Becomes a Nieman Fellow
‘Like a recurring nightmare, Nyarota became a frequent occupant of Harare’s police cells.’
By Shyaka Kanuma
