The poliTical survival of President Robert Mugabe’s government in the face of a massive and sustained domestic and international campaign for its ouster since 2000 has become something of an enigma. After the launch of its controversial land reform programme in 2000, the Mugabe regime has been a target for demonisation and delegitimisation in the international media where it is accused of, among other things, ruining the economy of what was once southern Africa’s bread basket and turning it into a basket case. How is it that a government of a small country such as Zimbabwe could manage to survive such a massive international media onslaught to a point where the international community is divided and even paralysed in terms of finding an acceptable form of intervention in a crisis that has led to political and economic collapse? Why has the Mugabe regime continued to draw support not only from fellow African governments and ordinary citizens but also from other foreign nations and individuals, given its incessant demonisation in the global media? Even in neighbouring South Africa where reports on Zimbabwe and Mugabe dominate foreign news in almost all media, public opinion on Mugabe and Zimbabwe continues to be extremely polarised, if the negative slant in the news coverage on the one hand, and the standing ovations Mugabe receives on his public visits on the other, can be something to go by. 1 While several explanations can be advanced, one aspect that stands out is the Mugabe regime’s conscious and wellcalculated deployment of mediated propaganda directed at both the domestic and international constituencies. 2 Notably, the mediation of the Zimbabwe crisis has taken on multiple dimensions which encompass the national, regional and global spaces. In the process, this has created various versions of the reality of that crisis. This chapter explores the various ways in which the Mugabe regime used the mass media as a tool for constructing a version of reality that advanced its cause in the face of rising global and local criticism between 2000 and 2008. The Zimbabwe government under President Mugabe, as Ezra Chitando aptly observes,