Fourth Day of Training: Major Lessons

Is the Internet a threat or Opportunity to Journalism? This is the biggest question that many journalism scholars keep on pondering about. But the answer to this question depends to a large extent on how you view it. For some and many may be, an internet age presents an existential threat to Journalism. It is a threat to both mainstream media and schools of journalism. They argue that with the internet revolution, many people are no longer relying on mainstream media as their major source of news. They instead depend on the new media for most of their news because new media is fast and that gate-keeping which denies them access to some information does not apply to new media.

For me, the advent of internet and new media in general is not necessarily a threat to traditional journalism. This is what I have come to learn in my four-day internet training for journalism lecturers here at SAUT. What I see myself is that the internet has just brought about the “democratisation of communication.” Democratisation in the sense that with the advent of internet technology, communication is no longer a monopoly of a trained or professional journalist as it used to be. The internet has just expanded a communicative space and everyone is virtually engaged in the communication process.

Otherwise, as our training reaches the end, I have come to realise that the advent of internet is more of an opportunity. There is a lot that traditional journalism can benefit from the internet revolution and new media in general. The internet has offered an alternative platform for publishing. If the editor rejects your story because it does not meet his “subjective” standards or criteria, you can still publish it online. This is what we call online journalism. The internet is also a ready-made tool for research. One can use it for fact finding and verification. One can also use the internet to improve his grammar and language in general. This is the major lesson that I am taking back to my students.

Our last day of training was overwhelmed with a research assignment. Each of the participant used the morning hours up to lunch to gather some facts from the internet for his feature article writing assignment. Myself, I had chosen to write a feature article on press freedom in Tanzania. With my internet searches, I was able to find a vast amount of information such as registrations that affect press freedom in Tanzania. I was able to discover that there is a total of 27 media laws that the media fraternity in Tanzania consider to be draconian. I was also able to get examples of media that have been banned as a result of these oppressive media laws. Further still, I was able to access details on the security challenges that journalists face in Tanzania. In my feature article, I was even able to link my reader to the original texts that I referred to.

As we were about to conclude our training, we were introduced to plagiarism and copyright law. In this, the facilitator emphasized that plagiarism is tantamount to academic theft that should be avoided by hook or by crook.

Something unusual happened as we were about to conclude our training. Abruptly as the facilitator was winding up his point on plagiarism and copyright law, all and sudden, we felt the building in which we were shaking. At the beginning, we could not understand what was happening. We could only hear something like a movement of the wind passing-by . All of us alarmed, we started peeping through the window to learn what was happening. Oh my God! We then saw our famous Fr. Mwanjonde Lecture Theater trembling. That is when we realized that it was an earthquake. Everyone had to make a choice. Some us started jumping and running downward from the fifth floor of Mgulunde Learning Resource Center like Muslims competing to throw stones to Satan in Mecca. God is really great. Otherwise, the whole department was to be wiped.

The training was officially concluded at 3.30pm with some closing remarks from Dr. Anne Gongwe, the Dean of Faculty of Social Sciences and Communication. Thanks to Mr. Peik Johanson, our facilitator from VIKES, the Finnish Media Foundation for your commitment and job well done.

What is President Magufuli doing to Promote Press Freedom in Tanzania?

Although many may not agree, especially the business community, the fifth phase government under President Magufuli has initiated some reforms that have brought a sigh of relief to the poor.

Many are optimistic that if Magufuli continues with the same speed, Tanzania will join many world countries as a middle income country.

For example, within the seven months that he has been in power, he has been able to turn his “free secondary education for all policy” into reality.

Again, President Magufuli has been able to restore a sense of discipline in public service. Today, public servants respect the people and are ready to serve them without demanding corruption as it used to be in the past.

But, what is Pressident Magufuli doing to promote Press Freedom in Tanzania?

On May 2 and 3, I was fortunate to be among the more than 500 media stakeholders who gathered at Malaika Beach Resort located on the shores of Lake Victoria to celebrate the World Press Freedom day. 

This was either my second time to take part in such national celebrations of the press day.

 The assembly gave media stakeholders namely practicing journalists, media owners and Journalism and Mass Communication related institutions of higher learning an opportunity  to take stock of their achievements and challenges with a view to chart the way forward.

One of the critical issues that surfaced in the discussions was the safety and security of journalists while undertaking their noble role of creating an informed society. 

Journalists in Tanzania just as it is the case with any other parts of the world, continue to work in a precarious environment. 

Journalists are killed, threatened and tortured as a way of silencing them. 

According to Simon Belege, the President of the Media Institute of Southern AfricaTanzania chapter, an advocacy group that monitors the state of press freedom in Southern Africa, two journalists were killed in 2012 and 2013 respectively. 

Journalists too are targeted online and receive death threats through their mobile phones. 

Also, although Tanzania ranks 71, which is a better position compared to her other five sister East African countries on the 2016 World Press Index, yet about 30 cases of harassment, abduction, torture and intimidation have been filed to the court.

The key perpetrators of such acts, according to journalists, are the state security agents. 

Often times, journalists are accused of siding with the opposition whenever they cover the activities of the opposition parties. 

They are also attacked with acid and deprived of their working tools whenever they expose major corruption scandals which continue to eat this nation.

According to journalists, with the coming into existence of a new government of President Joseph John Pombe Magufuli with its determination to root out corruption in this country, journalists have received death threats from corrupt individuals aggrieved by media reports.

The mood observed in the discussions for all the two times I participated in the world press freedom day was one filled with frustrations. 

Something must urgently and promptly be done to guarantee journalists of their safety so that they don’t continue to risk their lives. 

Tanzania’s media working environment leaves a lot to be desired. According to the MediaCouncil of Tanzania, Tanzania has about 27 registrations considered by the media fraternity to be draconian laws.

Some of such laws include the Newspaper Act of 1976, the National Security of 1970, the Prison Act of 1967 and the Broadcasting Act of 1993.

Others are the Statistics Act, the Cyber Crime Act which were enacted in 2015 as Tanzania was heading towards General election.

As a result of these oppressive media laws, some newspapers like Mawio and This Day have been banned.

As I write this article, two radio stations named Radio Five based in Arusha in Northern Tanzania and Magic Fm based in Dar es Salam have been closed. 

According to the World Bank, media is an important stakeholder in development.

“The creation and dissemination of knowledge are key factors in the development process where the media have been instrumental as a means of storing and sharing knowledge,” says the World Bank

One of the key priorities of the government of Magufuli has been to root out corruption which been eating this nation for quite long.

If President Magufuli is to succeed in his leadership and to leave a legacy for this country, he must include the issue press freedom in his development agenda.

He must remember that it is only a free media which can ensure transparency in both public and private sectors by exposing corruption in all its various forms.

I conclude this article by appealing to President Magufuli to extend his reforms to the media sector by repealing all the draconian laws that undermine press freedom in Tanzania.

Second Day of Internet Training

Yesterday was a second day of our training. Many issues were covered and it may not be possible to recall everything. Nevertheless, I am not suggesting that I did not gain anything. I was for example able to grasp how to link my blog with other sites of my interest. Some of the sites I was able to link with my blog are my University’s website, the website of VIKES, Jamii Forum, MISA Tanzania. This means that if am working on my blog, I can easily connect to the other websites that are already linked with my blog.

I was also able to learn how to put a background to my block. Through this, I can be able to change the background of my blog to suit my own interests and to make it appeal to my followers. 

Of utmost importance in our second day of training was how to search for information or data from the various websites. Some of the websites from which one can be able to get a vast amount of information are like www.amazon.com, www.ryanair.com, www.easyjet, www.yahoo.com etc. As far as Tanzania is concerned, one can be able for example know the population of any region or district in this country by visiting the website of the National Bureau of Statistics. 

We were also able to learn that, when searching for information, one must exercise great care. Some of the data found in some sites like Wikipedia cannot be trusted 100%. We were thus advised to think first before we rush to any website. We must know the type of information we are looking for. Having thought of all these, it can then be easier for us to know which websites to visit for the various information we are in need of. 

One important thing as far as internet searching is concerned is that with this internet revolution, one is assured of access to any type of information one is in need of. You can search for the facts, background of any issue or even search for the people. You can as well use the internet to crosscheck facts when embarking on editing or even check on grammar.