Journalism in Tanzania: Responsible? compromised or a flop!

i this week stumbled on a book titled gathering and writing the news by John Paul Jones. a chapter in the book on "the meaning of responsibility" in journalism has sent the shivers down my spine. the people have the right to know whatever has an effect on their life and that of their nation. A mammoth political rally in Arusha, northern Tanzania, ended in tragedy about three months ago. a granade was thrown into the crowd. A number of people were killed and a whole lot more injured. in the pandemonium that ensued, an unknown number of other fire arms were used to shoot at people in the crowd for unknown reasons.

this event was NOT A MAJOR STORY in any newspaper the following day. This issue has now fizzled out of the news in Tanzania.

May I kindly request the journalism fraternity, local and international, to debate the state of journalism in Tanzania in relation to treatment of this particular event. Is journalism in Tanzania responsible? compromised or a flop!

From my point of view, medias and journalists frm tanzania are very unproffesional and irresponsible!... I dn understand when I see breaking news in cnn or aljazeera about tanzania, n still our local media do not cover them, if reported zznakua very unproffesional!......
Nimependa san the way kenya mediaz zmekava westgate attack!... I thnk we have sumthing to learn from kenya media!...
Nyc topic thnx

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Micka said:

From my point of view, medias and journalists frm tanzania are very unproffesional and irresponsible!... I dn understand when I see breaking news in cnn or aljazeera about tanzania, n still our local media do not cover them, if reported zznakua very unproffesional!......
Nimependa san the way kenya mediaz zmekava westgate attack!... I thnk we have sumthing to learn from kenya media!...
Nyc topic thnx

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thank you for replying to this. you may notice there is dead silence on this topic in the last 18 hours (with the exception of your response). this is supposed to be a very serious topic, a very controversial topic. would you say no tanzanian journalist has seen this? i doubt! the silence could be another explanation the profession is in the wrong hands in this country. learning from Kenya sounds like the right thing to do. Would you have any ideas what particular aspect of the journalism profession in tanzanian needed immediate learning?

Journalism in Tanzania is both compromised and a flop!!!

Some definitely compromised and flop

both journalist and media at large are bussiness oriented

and thats the reason they play deaf and mute when it comes to newz that require much research and time to produce

Well, our media have a long way to go to reach a leverage of international media and news agency. Most of so called journalists are not fit for the profession, i have been working with some of these and the best they can do is writting and reporting. Narrow minded focus on news coverage no speculations on the events which require investigations. To my opinion there is a need for the forum to discuss extensively on the capacity of our media. No wonder a Washington Newspaper or CNN may have a full coverage and footage of the event occurring in Dar es Salaam than our local media.