New look as The Citizen relaunches

Dar es Salaam. The Citizen newspaper, a publication of Mwananchi Communication Limited (MCL), has been redesigned and will have a new look with effect from today.

Its pages will now cover 60 per cent of business content, which will be generated from the following main business-oriented segments; corporate, money and market and business week news.

However, the new look will also accommodate current and political news, which will constitute 40 per cent only.

Speaking at the MCL head offices yesterday, the company’s managing director, Mr Francis Nanai said The Citizen has been recording a positive improvement since it was established 13 years ago.

Mr Nanai also hailed efforts and contribution of the MCL staff for carrying forward the product and urged them to continue working hard.

For his part, MCL executive editor Bakari Machumu said redesigning of The Citizen was a result of research, which was conducted on readers’ needs - what they wanted to read about most.

He said The Citizen sought to aggressively curve a niche as the market leader in business reporting, analysis and investigation.

“With the advent of digital/social media news reporting, it was going to be untenable for The Citizen to continue with the current model of competing with Kiswahili newspapers for political and event-oriented news coverage,” he said. According to him, it was felt that there was a vacuum in the media in properly and consistently reporting business issues in Tanzania.

It is in this gap that The Citizen seeks to fill and is informed by the fact that the country’s economy is among the fastest growing in Africa, and with it there are opportunities that everyone is jostling for.

“The Citizen will be business community’s companion in addition to keeping our readers informed about current affairs,” he added.

The redesigning will enable readers to have more business news for up to six pages, more business analyses and views, three new data pages, shorter news and more graphic/data presentation. Pullouts such as Your health, Success, Political platform, Business Week, The beat and Insight will be retained with major improvements, but the name of Sound living magazine, which was published on Sunday has been changed to Life and style.

“With improved content, readers, especially those from the business class, will be able to make proper decisions in favour of their daily activities,” explained Mr Machumu. The Citizen was redesigned for the last time in 2010 from its former look since it was launched and published on September 16, 2004.