Tanzanian News
Picked up a Sunday Observer-local Tanzanian paper in English; lead article: “Reading culture badly lacking” lamented the lack of interest in reading and warning that Tanzania could become isolated and left behind as the world was “changing so fast.” The advent of TVs, the Internet and use of CD-Roms, according to the article, has contributed to the decline of reading.
Subsidiary article extolled President Mkapa’s gesture to include opposition parties in a discussion of issues concerning the country. Big front page news!
A third front page article by correspondent Saum Zidadu reported on a conference on “Reporting Africa” held in Gaborone, Botswana. Ms. Connie Rapoo Garebatho, in her paper “Gender and Human Rights” said that “Negative coverage has created negative images of the African continent which has had a negative effect on the continent’s economic, political and social development, especially hurting women, and makes Africa look hopeless in the eyes of the rest of the world.”
Conference presenters said that most media houses in the developed world report negatively about Africa as not only a poor continent that it is, but also as a continent that has no hope economically, socially or politically. Most of the time Africa only makes headlines, the conferees said, when people are dying of hunger, engaged in civil wars and natural disasters…
Finally, an inside column on literature by Bernard Mapalala titled “Nelson Mandela’s Ageing Principles” gave an unflattering review of the official biography of Mandela written by Anthony Sampson that came out in 1999. Apparently many African leaders did not feel supported by Mandela after his release from prison. Well…?
Tags: African Continent, Journalism, Tanzania, World Watching And Politics
Zoe