Mike Hove
Tatenda Mapfumo, the founder of Tipster, a media outlet promoting the relationship between trained journalists and citizen journalists, is among 60 young Zimbabweans selected to be part of the Mandela Washington Fellowship.
Mapfumo, who is a trained journalist, is ecstatic about the opportunity of experiencing life in a foreign country, creating business relations with fellow Africans and studying at the University of Indiana in Bloomington.
“Due to the fact that America is the billboard of human rights such as freedom of speech, and freedom of the press among several different human rights, as a practicing journalist coming from Zimbabwe, you can only be excited to experience that on a first hand basis,” said Mapfumo.
Mapfumo further said she is looking forward to witnessing how traditional American news outlets cover their news and how they have formed a relationship between traditional journalism and citizen journalism.
“Considering the fact that we are going to America among 960 fellow Africans, I am looking forward to hearing the stories of those in my line of work as I will get to learn more about their societal situations and how they carry out their media coverage. I would love to see if we can collectively come up with means to which the everyday person can contribute to journalism.”
Mapfumo expects that after the six-week program, she will be able to increase the impact of democratized content in Zimbabwean media outlets through interfacing with her fellow African fellows and the US community, which in her opinion will boost the number of Tipster followers.
Tipster, is a news sharing startup media outlet.