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Don advocates laws to ensure investigative reporters` safety
2008-03-13 09:28:13
By Correspondent Nasser Kigwangallah
A Journalism lecturer has urged the government to enact laws that would protect journalists from being attacked or injured by bad elements when exposing corruption scandals.
Shannon Martin, director of the Maine Centre for Student Journalism at the University of Maine in the United States, made the call in Dar es Salaam on Tuesday at a lecture on investigative journalism for senior journalists and editors.
The event was organised by Pact Tanzania, in collaboration with MISA-Tanzania Chapter under the support of the Millennium Challenge Account Threshold Programme and United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
In her lecture, Shannon noted that journalists encountered a lot of tribulations and, in most cases, were vulnerable to attacks from powerful people in the society who felt offended by articles which appear in newspapers.
``Lack of such laws has rendered journalists vulnerable to physical and mental attacks and the government should take these challenges seriously and make sure that laws were there to protect journalists from such attacks,`` she said.
She said investigative journalism was about digging information on how the government was governing and spending budgeted money for projects earmarked for the betterment of the people.
According to her, the duty of a journalist was to enquire from legislators and government officials as to why people`s problems were being neglected and the people were not getting value for their money.
She remarked: ``Government officials should furnish details on all enquiries on corruption, traffic problems, water and electricity as requested by journalists so that people could be well informed of their grievances and how they were being dealt with.``
Speaking at the occasion, Deodatus Balile, a journalist, said on their part journalists had the moral responsibility to protect the confidentiality of their sources so that a mutual working relationship between them could be consolidated.
He said the government should also specify documents that were classified and were therefore restricted to journalists.
He said many sources were reluctant to talk to journalists for fear of reprisal from their bosses, adding that this should not be encouraged at all in a free and democratic society.
A veteran journalist, Ndimara Tegambwage, cautioned the government from interfering in the work of the media and should leave it for the Media Council of Tanzania (MCT) or media bodies to regulate its functions.
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