[5] He was at Harvard University as a Nieman Fellow in the 2007/2008 academic year where his research focused on the role of the press in Zimbabwe and South Africa.
In May 2002, Meldrum was briefly jailed after the Zimbabwean government charged him with violating a statute against "publishing a falsehood" for reporting a man's claims that his wife was decapitated by Mugabe supporters (Zanu-PF) in front of her two young children.
Meldrum was acquitted and the magistrate ruled that he had acted as a responsible journalist, only to receive a deportation order.
Meldrum continued his work and exposed how a member of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change was beaten in police custody and later died.
His lawyer, Beatrice Mtetwa, had obtained court orders allowing him to remain in the country but he was abducted by police and detained before being forcibly expelled from Zimbabwe.