Bento
Venâncio, from Jornal Domingo and Brito Simango, from Televisão de
Moçambique, posing with Victor Mlunde while holding their Portuguese
Language General News Awards.
By Victor Mlunde
Last
Saturday, the world witnessed a historic annual CNN-Multichoice
Journalist Award ceremony on the continent, hosted for the first time in
our commercial capital, Dar Es Salaam.
The
choice of Tanzania is not only an unprecedented honor to the great
peaceful nation on the continent, but a rare opportunity to showcase
Tanzania and open its market to the world.
I
congratulate the event organizers and His Excellency the President, Dr
Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, for being the Guest of Honour, for his
outstanding economic diplomacy skills and unending efforts in showcasing
Tanzania to the world.
As usual, the president’s speech looked at quantity rather than quality, boasting to have more
media outlets in the country than neighbors – even with mounting
insecurity of media practitioners and existence of Draconian Newspapers
Act, 1976 and National Security Act, 1970 which limit press freedom as
we approach 2015 general elections, the standard rhetoric maintained
that the government will soon table the Freedom of Information and Media
Services Bills in parliament, a promise left unattended by the Ministry
of Information since begin of his second term in office back in 2006.
Despite
government’s slow pace in implementing commitments on free press, we
should acknowledge the fact that the head of state is at least committed
to transparency and open government more than his predecessors, at
least by signing international commitments and protocols on transparency
such as the Open Government Partnership, though more work needs to be
done in getting Media Freedom Bill and Services Act in place before busy
and tense election period comes in.
Categories and winners
The
award categories covered economics and business, press freedom, culture,
sports, photo journalism, sports reporting and the environment. Others
included Portuguese and French stories awards. Winners wrote moving and
interesting stories. To mention a few; Bento Venâncio, Jornal Domingo,
Mozambique investigated how lack of transparency in procurement of
automobiles in Mozambique leads to fraud, Evelyn Watta, a sports
reporter from Kenya revealed the value of Senegal’s mythical Wrestling
heritage to the West African nation. The most touching of all was Press
Freedom Award handed to the wife of jailed Swazi journalist, Bheki
Makhubu who is facing sedition for penning columns supporting a state
clerk who was charged for trying to put right the system that allowed
judicial officers to misuse public cars.
My
sincere congratulations should go to the only brave Tanzanian nominee,
one Dickson Ng’hily whose Dar traffic jam story was a concern of all Dar
commuters; too bad the judges underestimated the significance of his
story in pushing authorities in fast growing African cities to expand
the road network.
However,
a question remains; where were the rest of Tanzanian journalists? it is
believed the majority did not submit their work for some reason –
probably due to the fact that everyone was very busy reporting on
“katiba” stunning headlines “serikali mbili au tatu” instead of simple
local stories that could create positive impact in the community! If the
awards had a politics category, I am sure we would have beaten the
Kenyans and West Africans for our genius in making stunning political
headlines.
Yes!
We would have defeated our neighbours in Kenya who have outperformed the
whole of East Africa in this year’s awards, yet again. In fact it is
not the first time; even in the prestigious annual Kili Marathon held in
Tanzania’s Kilimanjaro region, Kenyans end up winning more trophies
while we the hosts are reduced to mere spectators each year.
President
Jakaya Kikwete presents the overall ‘CNN MultiChoice African Journalist
of the Year’ Award to Joseph Mathenge. Looking on is Mathenge’s son,
Geoff Kihato.
Overall winner
I was
personally moved by the story of the overall winner, Joseph Mathenge
and his son who convinced father to abandon his private photography
tender aimed at raising funds for son’s cancer treatment and instead
rushed to the Westgate Mall to capture the very first photos that
revealed the images of terror to the whole world.
Way forward
It is
high time Tanzanian journalists be proud of their work and confident to
present it in future awards, even when unsure of winning. More quantity
will help identify quality stories that will make all of us proud.
Organizers
should also add a social media category to honour and recognize
excellent work by social media which uses the internet and citizen
journalism to report sensational stories as they happen swifter than the
traditional media itself.
On
the other hand, award organizers should add a Swahili story category
alongside Portuguese and French story awards for it is an African Union
(AU) language widely spoken across East and Central Africa. Moreover, I
would like to advise CNN to introduce a CNN Swahili language service in
East and Central Africa, emulating BBC, Deutsche Welle, Radio France
International and VOA in giving local journalists in the broader Swahili
speaking East and Central African region to cover and explain local
stories to the world.
Victor Mlunde
is a Dar es Salaam-based Political and Development Consultant with
expertise in media, good governance, elections and conflicts resolution
in the Great Lakes region. He can be easily reached through +255 714
289428 and vicmlunde@yahoo.com
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