The Zimbabwe government publicly funds or controls some newspapers in Zimbabwe, such as The Herald. But until the revelations by the Independent it was widely accepted that the three publications in question, were fully privately funded.

The Independent alleges,

ZIMBABWE'S state security agency, the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), is seeking to emulate South Africa's apartheid-era information blitz by covertly taking over newspapers hitherto seen as independent of state control.
As state-owned media lose their credibility, the government regards control of the independent press as a more viable route to win the hearts and minds of a restive population.

[snip]

Sources said the CIO was also instrumental in the closure of Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ) titles, the Daily News and Daily News on Sunday. The two papers were closed in 2003. Another paper, The Weekly Times, was also closed earlier this year.

The Daily News, formerly the highest circulation newspaper, and several smaller weeklies were banned from publishing in the past two years as a result of a new government accreditation policy. Scores of journalists were arrested, deported or forced into exile under the laws he designed.

Besides newspapers, the state owns and controls the only television station and all four radio stations.

An AllAfrica editorial put it this way:

The reports about the CIO's activities in the media reveal a scandalous abuse of taxpayers' funds to prop up Mugabe's unpopular regime, and the extent to which the state security service has been roped into that war.

The CIO has ensured its direct control of the shareholding, administration and editorial of the target newspapers. And it has ensured its papers not only publish what are called in Russia "zhentsii" -- thinly disguised puff pieces on behalf of the establishment, packaged as news -- but that they pursue sycophantic stories. Propaganda by commission and omission is the guiding principle. Official apologia and party journalism, as opposed to political journalism, is now the modus operandi.

This is worse than in Russia, where newspapers, owned by power elites, were into party journalism. When former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev launched his policy of perestroika -- restructuring and reforming state institutions -- and with it glasnost, or openness, this marked the end of crude communist media censorship. It was thought the genie of press freedom could not be put back in the bottle. However, after that, the media found itself hostage to pro-state corporate interests. Circumstances relating to economic hardships, printing facilities, newsprint production, distribution, regulation, and harsh market realities squeezed the Russian media.

Of course, all allegations have been denied and the self-serving Mugabe government will most likely respond indignantly.