Across many countries, including Tanzania, there is a growing trend of polarisation and intolerance in how people relate to one another. Conversations — especially on social media and even within our homes — have turned into battlegrounds of competing ideologies. In some places, newsrooms amplify these divisions. It is worth asking whether “neutrality” still holds any relevance in society.
How we got here is the result of an era defined by the explosion of information and a growing failure of individuals to think critically for themselves.
We are now experiencing both the rewards and the dangers of social media replacing mainstream media as the main source of information. Although we have gained access to a wider range of viewpoints, we have also become more vulnerable to targeted, extreme opinions promoted by influential, partisan figures. Lacking the tools to analyse such vast amounts of content, we often gravitate — without much reflection — toward ideas that simply align with our instincts.
Our sometimes flawed choices are reinforced by the continuing collapse of public trust in mainstream media.
When mainstream media dominated the flow of information, journalism stood as a fortress of neutrality. Reporters aimed to separate fact from opinion, presented multiple sides of an argument, concealed their biases, relied on verifiable sources, used objective language, and restrained their emotions.
Today, those principles have eroded — and this decline has spread into alternative and social media alike. We have become accustomed to consuming extreme and conflicting conclusions about global warming, globalisation and inequality, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The result is a news audience divided into ideological camps. This is evident in the polarised media landscape of the United States between liberals and conservatives, and equally true in Tanzania, where people are categorised as either voting with their hands or protesting with their feet.
Journalists are attacked for bias no matter how carefully they report. Even objectivity now attracts accusations of questionable loyalty. As President George W. Bush famously said when declaring his “War on Terror”: you are either with us or against us.
Perfect neutrality is neither possible nor realistic, though there are moments when it remains desirable. Yet as the shift from mainstream to alternative media continues, journalists have a duty to provide leadership in transparency, disclose their perspectives and verify facts. If neutrality cannot be revived, then journalism must at least take the lead in defending honesty and countering the effects of extreme polarization.
