Tanzanian Reporters to Visit Maine in Journalism Exchange Program
Contact: Shannon Martin, (207) 581-1281; George Manlove, (207) 581-3756
ORONO, Maine — Six Tanzanian journalists will leave the southeast African nation June 15 to begin a unique a six-week training program at the University of Maine, where they will learn about U.S. news gathering and reporting techniques from UMaine faculty members and practicing New England journalists.
The project is possible through a $183,000 grant from USAID (United States Agency for International Development) through the Millennium Challenge Account Threshold Program, an anti-corruption initiative. Grant recipients and project collaborators are the UMaine School of Policy and International Affairs (SPIA), the university’s Communication and Journalism Department and the Office of International Programs on campus.
The team of UMaine journalism faculty members participating in the journalist exchange and certificate program hope the experience will leave both Tanzanian reporters and the United States mentors more aware of news reporting techniques in such different political and cultural environments, according to Shannon Martin, chair of UMaine’s Communication and Journalism Department and primary investigator for the grant’s exchange project.
The African journalists will visit news media organizations and newsrooms in Maine, New England and Washington, D.C., before returning home in August.
Journalists in emerging democracies like Tanzania can learn from other reporting techniques practiced in more established democratic countries, and Western journalists often can learn lessons from those developing countries, Martin says.
The Tanzanian population relies much more on radio news mass media than many American media markets,” Martin says. “One thing I’m hoping to learn from the Tanzania media is how they prepare their media broadcasts to reach rural markets.”
Much like journalists in Maine, reporters in Africa tend to work in more rural settings rather than major urban centers, says Martin. And increasingly, local reporting in places like Tanzania, Sudan and Kenya is taking on more global significance.