Journalists have been challenged to practice investigative journalism instead of focusing much on event reporting which hinders their professional development. 

This was during the launch of a report on the role of media in corruption and crime prevention, yesterday in Kigali. 

The report was conducted by the Media High Council in the period between December 2012 and February 2013. 

The study indicates that 153 news items in line with corruption issues and other crimes were identified and analysed from different news papers, broadcasting houses and online publications. 

According to the report, investigative related news stories constituted a mere 1.3% while event reporting stood at 90 per cent, a poor score that was also blamed on journalists themselves for not getting interested in investigative reporting. 

It indicates that corruption matters were reported at a 35 per cent rate, while other crime encompasses the remaining 65 per cent. 

Limited focus

It was discovered that most reporters focused their coverage on major anti-corruption events, including the world anti-corruption day, anti-corruption week in Rwanda and others. 

The findings show that 57.52 per cent of the analysed information was corruption and what appeared as crime preventive items were meant to educate and raise public awareness about effects of the vice, while the remaining package consisted of cases under investigation (13.73 per cent), and the judicial process (28.76 per cent). 

According to media specialists, event reporting doesn’t help in good governance since it plays only the role of informing the public about the occurrences. 

Most of the reasons cited that bar local journalists from practicing investigative and developmental journalism were financial capacity, fear, poor pay as well as lack of experience and skills among other things. 

"This media monitoring exercise proves that journalists are more attracted to reporting events than raising issues in an analytical and investigative way hence the predominance of articles in news story format (90.2 per cent),” the part of the summery of the report says. 

Looking ahead

The Media High Council acting Executive Secretary, Emanuel Mugisha, proposed to have a well-coordinated mechanism to support investigative journalists, saying it would essentially promote the profession in the country. 

"You have to overcome fear and I would propose that we establish an investigative desk that is well coordinated with a mechanism to facilitate and help the journalists who are willing to practice it,” he said. 

Fidel Twiringiyimana, a Radio One news reporter, said, "You might want to investigate say the issues related to land conflicts but give up fearing the repercussion.” 

He called for capacity building in investigative reporting for journalists. 

Laurent Ngongoli, from Human Rights Commission, said there is need to cultivate public interest in current affairs as the lack of it also affects media development.