Tandara Zimbabwe tells stories about Zimbabweans at home and across the diaspora. Many of those stories begin with conversations already happening in our communities. Our job is not simply to repeat those conversations, but to understand what they reveal, establish what we can, and make room for different experiences and perspectives.
Our stories. Our conversations. But also our responsibility to handle them carefully.
How We Find Stories
Tandara stories can begin in many places.
A social-media post. A discussion in a community group. A reader submission. An interview. A public document. A news development. A question raised by an earlier Tandara story. Sometimes, even a single comment can point towards a much bigger issue.
We treat these as signals, not automatically as stories.
Before publication, we ask what the wider issue is, what information needs to be checked, whose perspective may be missing and whether the conversation is worth bringing to a wider audience.
The story is not always the post that started it. Often, the story is what that post reveals.
How We Use Community Conversations
Social-media discussions are an important source of community insight for Tandara, but they have limitations.
A Facebook thread, WhatsApp discussion, X post or group conversation does not necessarily represent what Zimbabweans as a whole believe.
We therefore avoid turning a handful of comments into claims such as “Zimbabweans think…” when the evidence does not support that conclusion.
Instead, comments may help us identify:
- recurring experiences or concerns;
- disagreement around an issue;
- perspectives missing from the original discussion;
- questions that deserve further reporting;
- possible follow-up stories.
Where we quote or describe community reactions, we aim to preserve the meaning and context of what people said rather than forcing comments into a predetermined narrative.
Disagreement matters. A strong counterargument can be as editorially valuable as the dominant view in a discussion.
Verification and Sources
Tandara distinguishes between what somebody says and what can be established.
A person’s experience may be important and worth reporting while still containing details that require verification.
Depending on the story, verification may include reviewing original posts, documents, public records, published reports, official statements, interviews or other relevant material.
Where something cannot reasonably be independently established, we aim to make that clear rather than presenting an allegation or opinion as fact.
We also try to trace conversations back to their original source rather than crediting only the account or page that later amplified them.
Privacy and Anonymous Sources
Some stories involve family disputes, relationships, immigration, money, employment or other sensitive personal circumstances.
People submitting stories to Tandara may ask not to be publicly identified. Where appropriate, we may withhold a name or change identifying details to protect someone’s privacy.
Anonymity does not remove the need for editorial scrutiny. Information may still need to be checked before publication.
We also ask people submitting stories to avoid providing unnecessary identifying information about other individuals.
Publication of someone’s experience does not necessarily mean Tandara endorses every opinion expressed in it.
Corrections and Updates
We want Tandara stories to remain accurate after publication.
If we discover a meaningful factual error, we will correct it. Where a substantive correction or update changes or adds important information to a published story, we may include a notice explaining what changed.
Minor spelling, grammar, formatting or presentation changes may be made without a correction notice when they do not alter the meaning of the story.
Readers who believe something is inaccurate are encouraged to bring it to our attention.
Polls and Ask MaZimbo
Tandara uses polls to help readers participate in the conversations surrounding our stories.
Ask MaZimbo questions may appear on individual stories, elsewhere on Tandara or as part of wider community discussions.
These polls reflect the responses of people who choose to participate. They are not scientific polls and should not be interpreted as representative surveys of Zimbabweans generally.
Poll results may help Tandara identify questions, disagreements and experiences worth exploring in future stories.
Reader Responses and Follow-up Stories
Publication does not necessarily end a Tandara story.
Readers may challenge an assumption, offer another experience, identify missing information or raise an entirely new question.
We review reader responses for potential corrections, useful perspectives, verification needs, quotations and possible follow-up stories.
Sometimes the most interesting story begins after the first one is published.
Artificial Intelligence and Editorial Responsibility
Tandara may use digital and artificial-intelligence tools to assist parts of the editorial process, including research organisation, transcription, analysis, editing, production or identifying patterns in large amounts of material.
These tools do not remove Tandara’s editorial responsibility.
Information generated or suggested by automated tools should not be treated as independently verified simply because a tool produced it. Responsibility for what Tandara chooses to publish remains with Tandara.
Our Approach
Tandara is not here to manufacture agreement.
Zimbabweans live in different countries, generations, families and circumstances. We will not always see the same issue in the same way.
Our aim is to create space for those differences while maintaining a clear distinction between experience, opinion, allegation and established information.
We will sometimes get things wrong. When we do, we want to correct them. We will sometimes encounter questions without simple answers. We would rather acknowledge that complexity than pretend certainty where it does not exist.
One story can carry many experiences. One conversation can lead to another.
Our stories. Our conversations.