East African media falls short in solar energy reporting: study

Dar es Salaam. A new report reveals a concerning lack of awareness and reporting on solar energy use in East Africa, despite global efforts to promote clean energy solutions.

A research report on the publication of news related to solar energy in the agricultural sector revealed that only 63 stories were reported on this topic in Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda from January to December last year.

Speaking during the launch of the report named ‘Baseline report on media coverage of solar energy and productive use of solar energy in agriculture in East Africa,’ today, July, 11, 2024 in Dar es Salaam, a researcher who is also a lecturer at the School of Journalism at the University of Dar es Salaam (SJMC), Dr Darius Mukiza said lack of market appeal for such news, editors’ and journalists’ lack of understanding on how to report these stories, were among the reasons cited for this trend.

The lack of appeal for these stories, the poor understanding of the topic by journalists, and the lack of empowerment were among the reasons for this situation.

“We are still lagging in reporting these issues even though the world is directing us to move in this direction due to the challenges of climate change,” he said.

According to him, while not satisfactory, Uganda led with 30 reports over the 13 months of last year, followed by Kenya with 23, and Tanzania trailing with just 10 reports on solar energy from January to December last year.

In addition to the low reporting rate, the report highlighted that in newspapers, such stories were placed from page five onwards.

Commenting on that trend during the event of report launching, the Chairperson of the Media Institute of Southern Africa Tanzania (MISA-TAN), Salome Kitomari, said that media houses focus more on stories that provide commercial benefits.

“The reality is that we journalists consider many factors, especially business when deciding what to place on the front pages. Thus, these solar energy stories are not prioritised in the market,” she explained. Echoing Kitomari’s sentiments, the Executive Editor of Mwananchi Newspaper, Joseph Damas, emphasised the importance of assessing community needs for such stories.

According to Damas, this assessment will enable media houses to understand the size of the market for this type of news.

“We (Mwananchi) do not write stories without knowing why and for whom we are writing. Everything we write has expectations, so it is important to understand how much these stories are needed by the community and start to cover them respectively,” he said.

For his part, the chairperson of the Tanzania Editors Forum (TEF), Deodatus Balile, said that knowledge among journalists and editors about writing these stories is a challenge.

“Most of our journalists are not friendly and well equipped with knowledge on such matters, that’s why they don’t report them more often,” he said.

African Center for Media Excellence (ACME), Planning Officer, Brian Ssenabulya, said that the launch of the report will be followed by seminars for journalists to ensure they are empowered to report on solar energy news.

“In few weeks to come, we will start a training to equip journalists with the knowledge to report this beat in their media houses,” he said. In addition to the workshop, he said the institution will do everything possible to financially support journalists to report this type of news.