Mzee Tido, the elephant in newsrooms has finished the peanuts. It is now eating the furniture

DAR ES SALAAM: THERE is an old African belief that if a visitor stays long enough in your house, eventually he stops asking for permission before opening the refrigerator. The same principle applies to elephants.

If an elephant wanders into your sitting room and you spend several years politely pretending not to notice it because you are worried about offending it, eventually the elephant develops confidence.

It begins rearranging the furniture according to its personal taste, invites relatives from neighbouring districts, occupies the best sofa in the house, and before long is conducting family meetings while the actual owners stand nervously in the corner pretending everything is perfectly normal.

This, unfortunately, is precisely where Tanzania’s media landscape finds itself today.

The elephant is no longer merely in the newsroom. The elephant owns the newsroom.

The elephant presents the morning programme, moderates the afternoon panel discussion, hosts the evening sports analysis, appears on social media live sessions after dinner, and then returns the following morning to explain why Simba’s left-back failed to track a run in the seventy-eighth minute while a nation of nearly seventy million people nods gravely as though the future of civilisation itself hangs delicately upon this tactical mystery.

Now, before football supporters begin composing angry messages of the sort that usually begin with “With all due respect…” and end with absolutely no respect whatsoever, let us establish one thing immediately.

Football is not the villain in this story.

Football is wonderful.

Football is beautiful.

Football has given Tanzania some of its happiest collective moments, some of its greatest friendships, some of its most entertaining arguments and, admittedly, some of its most creative insults.

The Simba-Yanga rivalry remains one of East Africa’s greatest sporting institutions, a magnificent cultural phenomenon capable of transforming otherwise sensible adults into emotional philosophers who can spend four hours debating an offside decision while completely forgetting why they originally entered the room.

The problem is not football.

The problem is when football becomes everything.

The problem is when an entire national conversation becomes trapped inside an endless loop where the same topics, the same arguments, the same talking heads and often the same jokes are reheated daily like yesterday’s rice, served with fresh enthusiasm and presented as though they have only just emerged from the intellectual oven.

Take a typical day in Tanzania.

A citizen wakes up.

The radio discusses football.

He enters a daladala.

The passengers discuss football.

He reaches work.

His colleagues discuss football.

Lunch arrives.

Someone forwards a football clip.

The evening bulletin analyses football.

The late-night livestream analyses the analysis of the football.

At midnight, somewhere in Tanzania, a man who has never coached a team, managed a team, owned a team or perhaps even successfully organised a neighbourhood football match is confidently explaining tactical deficiencies to an audience of several thousand equally confident listeners.

Meanwhile, stories that might genuinely change lives struggle for attention like forgotten passengers waving desperately as the bus speeds away.

Which brings us to one Filbert Bayi.

Or rather, to the extraordinary silence that greeted him.

For younger readers who may only know Bayi as a famous name occasionally mentioned by older sports journalists whenever nostalgia enters the room, Filbert Bayi was not merely a successful athlete.

He was a sporting revolution disguised as a middledistance runner.

In an era when athletes approached races with all the caution and patience of accountants balancing ledgers, Bayi approached them like a man who had somewhere important to be and had no intention whatsoever of waiting for anybody else to arrive.

His strategy was disarmingly simple.

Run.

Run hard.

Run harder.

Then let everybody else deal with the consequences.

It was athletic audacity at its purest.

He broke world records.

He won Commonwealth gold.

He transformed perceptions of middle-distance running.

He represented Tanzania with distinction. He built institutions.

He mentored young people.

And unlike many public figures who disappear shortly after the applause stops, he remained useful.

That alone is a rare achievement.

Recently, approaching seventy years of age, Bayi published his memoir.

The title could not be more appropriate.

Catch Me If You Can. The book contains triumph, hardship, sacrifice, friendship, disappointment and perseverance.

It contains enough drama to fill several television series.

At one point, there is even a story involving a hyena threatening his pregnant mother, which frankly deserves immediate consideration by filmmakers.

Yet much of Tanzania’s media responded with something bordering on indifference.

Naturally.

Because somewhere a panel discussion was urgently required to determine who is the best between Yanga’s “Star Boy” Okello or Simba’s “Triple C” Chama.

National priorities can be fascinating things.

Sometimes we ignore giants while chasing shadows.

Which is why the recent comments by Mzee Tido Mhando deserve careful attention.

As Chairman of the Journalists Accreditation Board and Special Adviser to the President on Media Affairs, Mhando recently warned that Tanzanian journalism is drifting away from substantive reporting and increasingly embracing entertainment-driven content.

He is absolutely right.

Painfully right.

Uncomfortably right.

In fact, one could argue that he was so right that the statement should have generated a national debate lasting several weeks.

But here is where this apology of a Sunday column must respectfully part company with Mzee Tido.

Because while recognising a fire is commendable, eventually somebody must also bring water.

Mzee Tido is not merely an observer.

He is not a retired journalist sitting comfortably on a veranda offering thoughtful reflections about the state of the profession.

He occupies one of the most influential positions in Tanzania’s media ecosystem.

He has access.

He has authority.

He has credibility.

He has experience.

Most importantly, he possesses something that many journalists, editors and concerned citizens do not possess.

He can walk into rooms where decisions are made.

Therefore, the question becomes unavoidable.

What now?

Because speeches, however accurate, do not change systems.

Observations do not change systems.

Concern does not change systems.

Action changes systems.

And action is precisely what this moment requires.

The uncomfortable truth is that Tanzania’s media challenges are no longer merely editorial.

They are becoming national development challenges.

When a society spends increasing amounts of timeconsuming mediocre noise while spending decreasing amounts of time-consuming knowledge, the consequences eventually extend far beyond television studios and radio stations.

A nation that endlessly debates football while rarely debating science, education, innovation, agriculture, entrepreneurship and governance gradually begins producing citizens who are experts in commentary but amateurs in citizenship.

Public discourse becomes thinner.

Critical thinking weakens.

Curiosity declines.

Institutions suffer.

Progress slows.

Not dramatically.

Not overnight.

But steadily, quietly and persistently.

Like rust.

This is why Mzee Tido’s intervention cannot end with speeches.

The moment calls for leadership.

It calls for convening media owners, editors, regulators, journalists, educators and policymakers around one table and asking difficult questions.

Not the sort of meeting that produces a glossy communiqué and several excellent photographs before everyone departs for lunch.

A genuine meeting.

A serious meeting.

A meeting with measurable outcomes.

A meeting that asks what role journalism should play in national development and what standards broadcasters should meet if they wish to enjoy the public trust associated with journalism.

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Freedom of expression must remain sacred.

Nobody is proposing censorship.

Nobody is proposing restrictions.

But freedom without responsibility eventually becomes noise.

And noise, however entertaining, cannot build nations.

Filbert Bayi understood this principle better than most.

When everybody else waited, he ran.

When others hesitated, he moved.

When the moment arrived, he did not study it endlessly from the starting line.

He acted.

Today, Tanzania’s media stands at its own starting line.

The race has begun.

The crowd is watching.

The lane is clear.

And respectfully, Mzee Tido, this is where the challenge lands.

You have diagnosed the illness.

Now help prescribe the treatment.

You have identified the elephant.

Now help escort it outside.

Because the elephant has already finished the peanuts.

It has finished the bananas.

It has finished the cushions.

And unless somebody intervenes soon, it may begin eating the very foundations of the house.

The starting gun fired some time ago.

The country is waiting.

And this race, unlike Filbert Bayis, cannot be won by spectators.

The post Mzee Tido, the elephant in newsrooms has finished the peanuts. It is now eating the furniture first appeared on Daily News.

The post Mzee Tido, the elephant in newsrooms has finished the peanuts. It is now eating the furniture appeared first on Daily News.