Media houses lack transparency: study

MCT executive secretary Kajubi Mukajanga, Photo|File

What you need to know:

While journalists and their media houses have been vociferously critical of the lack of transparency in the public and private institutions, new report accuses them of the same weakness which appears to be as surprising as paralyzing.

Dar es Salaam. A new report has criticised the trends in Tanzania’s media houses that lean towards lack of transparency on how they run their affairs.

This is even as they often complain about a lack of transparency in both public and private sectors in the country.

Media houses have many times claimed to face difficulties in accessing information of public interest. But according to Media Ownership Monitor (MOM)-Tanzania’s project has shown that media houses are not transparent, making it almost impossible for the researchers to access information of public interest concerning the media sector.

Undertaken jointly by the Media Council of Tanzania (MCT) and the Reporters Without Boarders (RSF), the (MOM)-Tanzania project’s report, launched yesterday, sought to examine the issue of media ownership and how it can affect editorial independence.

At a city function that drew attendance of various personalities including German ambassador to Tanzania Dr Detlef Wachter, MCT’s executive secretary Kajubi Mukajanga, RSF’s president Dr Michael Rediske, and media guru Jenerali Ulimwengu, lead researchers said that they were appalled by the silent responses they received from media houses when they inquired for information about their ownership. “From the 21 companies that were contacted, only three media houses answered. Most did not even return a few others did it only after three weeks of constant follow-ups,” he said.

Of those, not all the questions were answered correctly or some of the questions were not answered at all, he added.

Lead researcher Dr Samwilu Mwafisi said this was surprising as the questions were not at all on sensitive topics.

The questions only covered the identity of shareholders and other important people in the company, registration date with Brela, TCRA or Tanzania Information Services, start date of operations and the number of employees, he said.