The Tanzanian newspapers in the coverage of 2013 Kenya elections

The study examined coverage of the 2013 Kenya elections, in a private and public owned newspaper namely The Guardian and the Daily News. The sample size for this study was 58 newspaper articles. Twenty five articles were gleaned from the Guardian and thirty three articles from the Daily News. These were reviewed and major points summarized. This study used stratified random sampling to select newspaper articles to ensure representation of the news articles with similar characteristics. The categories were before, during and after the 2013 Kenya elections, that is from February to March 2013. The study was conducted in Dar es Salaam. This study used qualitative and quantitative research methods to collect statistical and numerical data whereas the qualitative method enabled the researcher to do content analysis of in-depth interviews and Focus Group Discussions to get a deeper understanding of the collected data. The total sample was 15 respondents aged 16-29 years old. Purposive sampling was used to select three journalists, and FGDs were conducted with 12 respondents. Key findings revealed that during the 2013 Kenya elections, the newspapers informed, educated, reported and provided visual coverage of the candidates and their political parties, but this was subjective and partial. Most news reports did not cover independent views on important issues instead they showcased the interests of media owners. In some cases, important facts of the election campaigns and essential issues were not covered. Many of the reports in the selected newspapers were gleaned from foreign sources such as Reuters. Reuter’s coverage of the Kenya elections was negative, biased and violence was highly linked to the coming election. Data from interviews and Focused Group Discussions revealed that the media can promote democracy by educating voters, protecting human rights, promoting tolerance among social groups, and ensuring that governments are transparent and accountable. Media can only play a positive role if there is an enabling environment that allows them to do so. The findings also revealed that media should be freely accessible to a wider audience and the media’s press rights should be protected in order to make media accountable, and strengthen media capacity and democratize media access. There is a need for the social media to include a larger population of youngsters in democracy.