TGNP MISTREATS JOURNALISTS AT GENDER FESTIVAL 2011 IN DAR

 

Miss Lilian Liundi, the TGNP Communications Officer

AS per your invitation, journalists turned to the Gender Festival-2011 at TGNP Mabibo  in Dar es Salaam from 13^th September, 2011 to September 16^th, ,  but were disappointed by the way you treated them.

Once journalists are invited to attend any of such programmes, it is essential, as a matter of hospitality, to be paid some allowance for taking their time on the matter.

But alas, on Friday 16th September, 2011 during the closing ceremony last week, things turned ugly as journalists left TGNP offices disappointed, when Lilian Liundi, the Communications Officer broke out news that no allowance was available to them, as per agreement prior to the festival.

Lilian, with no respect at all to the journalists said that no allowance was available to journalists from Dar es Salaam, unless they produced cuttings of their reporting of the festival events, while other participants, including upcountry journalists and gays were being paid on their presence.

She, with impunity said: “You are not entitled to any allowance unless you bring your cuttings, showing how you have reported the event.”

This is a disgrace to the journalism profession, showing how journalists are being mistreated by TGNP and her partners.

Please ensure that that journalists are paid their due whenever they attend any of such functions and if they cannot be paid, please they should not be invited at all.

Due to act of disregard to journalists, they have decided that no journalist will ever attend any of the functions conducted by TGNP in future and editors should take note of that.

Journalists are not there to be used to foster TGNP campaigns and then ignored in that manner.

According to reports, most journalists left TGNP offices without having any food as nothing was served to them, who were there since morning.

Time has passed when you used to see journalists as tools to send your message through, just to be ignored like that.

Journalists should be respected due to their profession so that they could perform their duties diligently.

I think this message will be heeded in order to have a good working relationship with TGNP in future.