Ownership, control and the role of the media : the case of Daily News and The Guardian in the Coverage of the 2000 General Parliamentary and Presidential Elections in Tanzania

This study is about the media and democracy. It assesses the impact of the patterns of ownership, control and the role of the media in the democratization process in Tanzania in private and state-owned media. The study looks at the way two leading English dailies in Tanzania, The Guardian and Daily News owned by a private entrepreneur and the government respectively, covered the country's second multiparty general and presidential elections in 2000. The study deviates from a perspective that repressive media laws are the main problem for the independence of the media in the country. It establishes that such a position fails the test of time as it ignores other factors like media ownership, control, business interests and the general developments in the media. In building up the argument, an attempt is made to point out weaknesses of the media in Tanzania in general as reflected in the coverage of the two newspapers in the year 2000 General and Presidential Elections. On the other hand, the study offers a critical analysis of the perspectives of the media as the fourth estate which checks and counterbalances the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. The argument put forward is that the proponents of this particular school of thought have government authorities in mind