Buy a journalist lunch today, they too need a little TLC in these uncertain times

Now that World Press Freedom day is far behind us let’s revisit the topic. It has been interesting to read and think about the profession as reported by itself because nobody can cover the press with as much conviction as the press itself. And who doesn’t like to watch an entire industry navel gaze in public?

Considering the pace at which journalism and media have been evolving in the past 30 years, these periodic assessments aren’t only useful for advocacy, they are vital for a little bit of intellectual “maintenance” work.

My favourite debate is whether the press and media should be free – or rather how much freedom they should enjoy. This is not a discussion that we have overtly in Tanzania... in English. But in Kiswahili, and especially on broadcast, specifically radio, our favourite medium, it is a topic of constant examination, debate and deliberation.

The obvious statement to make here is that this is because most of us think in Kiswahili (if not our mother tongue). English is just the lingua franca that helps us interface with the rest of the globe.

The thing to keep in mind is that using Kiswahili affords us a wonderful privacy in this constantly chattering, always-on media dominated environment. Even on social media!

Our closest neighbours in proximity and fluency rarely check in on the happenings over here, which makes it easy, and relatively safe, to have private national conversations in public without the world noticing.

It is a lovely duality: If we do want to be noticed, we will engage with this suspect English (whose grammar and spellings often escape us). Otherwise we are well content to simmer our social matters in a local pot, safe from the gaze of the outside.

In the past couple of weeks, three media issues have come across my radar as being fairly important to the Tanzanian context. The first is a perpetual complaint: That quality journalism is becoming scarce, with print in particular focusing on sensational stories.

I say, forgive an ailing industry; between our reluctance to read “difficult” or “balanced” journalism and the impact of new media, sometimes newspapers have to do what they do to survive.

Another feature of regime changes is the time it takes to read the new landscape and cautiously proceed into the new landscape. Not all regimes have the same attitude towards a free media, this is not unique to Tanzania.

The second issue is censorship. It is old news now but a Bongo Flava song recently got banned (and immediately became immensely popular). You can get away with a racy song since Kiswahili is the language of double, even triple entendres and innuendo, so there’s no need to use foul language.

You can’t, however, get away with illustrating your songs with steamy videos. I am told that technically we can show adult content so long as it is after the watershed hour of 10pm. The justification for banning highly sexual content is to preserve our dignity, some blah blah about Tanzanian culture, and of course to protect the children from depravity.

The most important issue is the government and parliament’s move to edit Bunge coverage when they are in session and then broadcast the edited version later in the day. This is a matter of betrayal.

The votership was surprised to see the parliament vote in favour of this measure. Not because it is dominated by the ruling party. It was opposition and “young” parliamentarians’ votes that burned a new hole of cynicism into our hides.

Having ascended to the enviable position of being paid from tax money, our partners in the struggle for better governance decided to support the idea that we the people should be “shielded” from the messy business of legislation.

From these three instances, I choose to infer that the negotiation between the consumers of media, journalists and the state is proceeding with a satisfactory amount of contention to keep things moving along.

The boundaries of freedom are constantly shifting for the press, as they are for individuals. I conclude that we may be shifting slightly rightwards, with the concern for “propriety” and “the good of the nation” becoming increasing threats to the freedoms (and courage) of our local media.

And that politicians remain wonderfully, predictably self-serving without too much thought for long-term consequences, bless their cowering little souls. So the state of our media is: Buy a glass of juice and plate of zege for your journalist friend, they probably need the comfort in these times.

Elsie Eyakuze is an independent consultant and blogger for The Mikocheni Report, http://mikochenireport.blogspot.com. E-mail: [email protected]