The quality of radio journalism in Tanzania: Empowering citizens or at a crossroads?

Abstract

There is a dearth of scholarly work that measures the quality of journalism, both in Western contexts and in the Global South. This might be partly explained by the difficulty in defining, operationalising and measuring news media quality. However, those data would be helpful to identify the societal role of radio journalism in enabling citizens to participate and take decisions. As radio plays an overarching role in Tanzania for information, especially for those living in rural areas, this article assessed research data from the “Yearbook on Media Quality in Tanzania” that has identified quality as a list of criteria describing various characteristics of journalistic texts and set thresholds to distinguish good from poor quality. Thus, it measured the quality performance of 30 print, radio and TV media houses. This article now assesses radio journalism in the country, with a focus on comparison amongst radio stations. The assessment shows that some quality criteria were almost not fulfilled at all, although they are acknowledged as important, for example, the right of reply, or covering viewpoints that are critical to the government. Nevertheless, with regard to professionalism and comprehensive reporting, the data show that some radio stations perform largely better than others and that programmes are much better compared to newscasts. The external environment plays an important role in performance. Many shortcomings in quality are due to the harsh political environment and economic challenges. However, the internal newsroom environment plays an additional role and explains as well some of the quality differences identified.