Dar es Salaam. The Tanzania News Council (MCT) has postponed the opening of the Tanzania Journalism Excellence Awards (Ejat) window until April, 2025.
That window, which is opened between November and December every year, has been postponed, in order to research the best ways to find the winners of the awards, unlike the usual system.
MCT has been awarding excellence in journalism for 15 years since 2009 by collecting published news from newspaper, radio, television and online journalists.
Speaking to journalists today, Friday December 20, 2024 in Dar es Salaam, the Executive Secretary of MCT, Ernest Sungura said they will conduct research to identify more journalists, even those who do not present their work.
“The study of these awards will be held nationally from January to March, 2025 and will go hand in hand with the systemic change plan, so that the Council works digitally and closely with the citizens,” he explained.
He said that one of the things that will be researched is the structure of the award, the way to get winners and the participation of citizens in news with solutions to social challenges.
“After this awarding system has been used for 15 years, the Council will make adjustments to reach everyone who participated to complete the information,” he explained.
Sungura added that one of the methods used to find the winners is to track and find out the best news of the writer, without their knowledge, unlike in the beginning where journalists send their own work.
“There are many writers with good work who have never submitted their work to the Council to get an award, our goal is to highlight every writer with good work,” he explained.
He has also explained that there are some forgotten groups, who are also involved in winning news.
“Awards are for photographers, newsreaders, sports broadcasters,” he says.
Likewise Sungura said, after the research in 2025, the awards will be given for good news in 2024 and 2025.
Answering questions from journalists, Sungura said the overall winners of various awards will compete for international awards.
“The overall winner's works will be sent to the East African awards,” he explained.
Speaking about the procedure of MCT, journalist and winner of EJAT awards in 2011, Neville Meena has criticized it saying that it is not good to use votes to find the winners of the awards.
“The initial system had criteria and conditions to win, I don't think that involving the people in making decisions will bring worthy winners of those awards,” he said.
He says that the voting system is based on passion and not academic criteria.
“For me, the initial system is better and it brought winners who deserve those awards,” he explained.
Meena has added that the issue of the award should be done calmly and by those who know the profession and not for writers.
Also, he said that Tanzania has many sources of information and he does not think that they will be followed professionally to find a winner.
“There are blogs, newspapers, television, Instagram and many others and there are all kinds of news, it is not easy to follow all the news and find a winner, I think it is better if the old system is used,” he explained.
It is not bad to improve the system
However, the Director of Tanzania Media Foundation, Dastan Kamanzi said the council's decision is good in improving the awards.
“Ejat awards have been held for a long time with the same system and creating habits for writers like the Council had to evaluate themselves in order to make a difference and they have done so,” he explained.
He said, however, there were questions from various media stakeholders questioning the process of journalists winning the awards.
“Not only the stakeholders, even the judges also admit that most of the news did not meet the criteria for winning the award, they often give victory to those who have merit,” explained Kamanzi.
Kamanzi has said that involving the public in making decisions is the most correct thing and that the news is written to solve their challenges.
“This system will encourage writers to do quality work that is beneficial to the public,” Kamanzi said.
