Tanzania
Tanzania's press freedom outlook briefly brightened in March 2021, when the sudden death of the increasingly authoritarian President John Magufuli brought Samia Suluhu Hassan to power. That early hope has yet to fully materialise: recent years have seen renewed suspensions of critical outlets, mass arrests around protests, and deadly violence surrounding the 2025 presidential election. Currently, the country ranks 117 out of 180 on the RSF Press Freedom Index.
Tanzania is home to a large and dynamic media landscape, with hundreds of newspapers, radio stations, TV channels and online outlets. Yet size has not translated into independence. Many outlets are owned by or linked to politicians, and privately owned newspapers often rely on state advertising for a large share of their income, funding that quickly disappears for those seen as critical of the government. A restrictive legal framework enacted mostly under Magufuli, including a 2016 Media Services Act that criminalises defamation and allows the government to suspend newspapers outright, remains largely in place, and promised reforms have been slow to materialise.
A fragile political opening under renewed strain
The optimism that followed President Hassan's rise in 2021 has given way to setbacks. Political rallies have again been suspended, journalists covering protests are routinely arrested, and an official inquiry into violence surrounding the October 2025 election found that more than 500 people were killed. In 2026, fear of further crackdowns has continued to deter Tanzanians from exercising their right to protest, with dozens detained including a university lecturer charged with terrorism over his role in planned demonstrations. Ownership concentration adds a further concern: the recent acquisition of East Africa's largest media house by a prominent businessman has raised questions about the future independence of the region's journalism.
Economic and structural pressure on the media
Beyond political interference, Tanzania's media faces mounting economic strain. Journalists are poorly paid and their positions precarious, while newspapers in particular are struggling as fewer people buy print copies and advertisers move their money to online platforms instead. As a 2026 academic study identifies, Tanzania’s media landscape suffers declining journalism quality, digital disruption, financial constraints, and an unfriendly legal environment.
Our work in Tanzania
Free Press Unlimited has worked in Tanzania since 2016, when the country was included in our No News is Bad News programme, one of sixteen country programmes designed to strengthen the enabling environment for independent media. As press freedom conditions in Tanzania worsened over the following years, our work adapted and grew alongside our partners.
In 2018, Free Press Unlimited supported the launch of the Media Lab at the Tanzania Media Foundation (TMF), an innovative space training young journalists in data and investigative journalism techniques and extending reach into rural communities. The same year, we supported the Swahili translation and launch of the European Journalism Centre's Data Journalism Handbook. The Media Lab, later relaunched as the Makini Media Lab, went on to mentor two cohorts of journalism fellows between 2019 and 2020, producing investigative reporting on social and development issues in partnership with Nukta Africa and Humasa Magazine. In 2020, we also began supporting MediaSpace Tanzania, a women-led organisation focused on amplifying women's voices and building youth media literacy. As Tanzania's media confronted the COVID-19 pandemic, we extended our support through a regional COVID-19 Response in Africa project, helping ensure reliable public health information continued to reach communities across the country.
