Kumbikumbi, Kisamvu and Lazy Journalism
By Edgar Masatu
On Monday the 28th of November, John Maratu reporting for ITV (Tanzania) evening news, as always in his flamboyant signature italic voice, reported that an unnamed supplier had failed to deliver food aid to a district in Mara as per the said supplier's contract with the Government of Tanzania. He alleged that due to failure of delivery by the supplier, the intended recipient had resorted to eating Ugali, Kisamvu and Kumbikumbi. The report featured a local authority official who conceded that the supplier had been tasked to deliver 4 tonnes and had so far had only managed to send 2 tonnes.
I must at this point declare that I am a huge fan of both Kisamvu and Kumbikumbi. In fact, at the moment, I am struggling to secure a supplier who can reliably deliver this wonderful delicacy to in Dar es Salaam.
Kisamvu, and indeed Kumbikumbi, are, to the best of my knowledge, part of the Lakezone palette, and, actually, Tanzania in general. Suggesting that they are only used as a fall-back position is both a fallacy and lazy journalism.
In my opinion, the story should have focused on why the supplier had failed to deliver the contracted food aid. Furthermore, Mr. Maratu should have not only interogate the causality of this but also investigate why the district could not feed itself from the get go, the future implications and may be even speculate on plausible solutions.
But Mr. Maratu did none of those things. Instead he resorted to simplistic generalizations that not only insulted the people of Mara but made him look like a fool. It was a sad day for television journalism.
Edgar Masatu is a Tanzanian Political Scientist and Marketing Communications Consultant, with a major thing for Liverpool FC, Writing and the Arts.
(Photo: Kisamvu in a silver bowl, via FashionDesign-Liphi)