CONTENTS | ANB-BIA HOMEPAGE | WEEKLY NEWS
by Peter Bahemuka, Uganda, January 2000
THEME = MEDIA
Uganda has the reputation of being a country with a vibrant print media
Uganda has had newspapers since 1911 but has a bad record, as a country with high "birth and mortality" rates for newspapers and new magazines.
The overwhelming majority of newspapers established in the country's 88-year print press history, have disappeared, due mainly to weak financial foundations, harsh market realities, poor management, and a poor reading culture among Ugandans. For example, no less than fifty publications have appeared on the newsstands in Uganda since 1986, but only twenty-three are surviving today.
Even considering the vicissitudes and cataclysms of the times, that is a bad record. Only one of the many newspapers, newsletters and magazines started in the colonial days, survived into the 1990s. This was the Luganda-language Munno newspaper, founded in 1911, eleven years after the establishment of British colonial rule. It was owned by the Catholic Church in Uganda, which had arrived in Uganda in the last half of the 19th century, and which had a printing press. It was the oldest known titled, regularly published newspaper in Uganda. Even so, it folded in the mid-1990s.
There are two things to note about the history of Uganda's print media. Firstly, virtually all the newspapers have been established in Kampala and are mainly read around Kampala, the country's capital city. The leading daily and weekly newspapers are based in Kampala, and circulate out to other urban centres throughout the country. Only three regional weekly newspapers are based outside Kampala. The rest are centred in Kampala which is crowded with all sorts of publications chasing a limited readership.
Secondly, the government has been publishing a newspaper since the 1960s alongside private newspaper publication initiatives. This paper has been changing name with each regime and has been variously called the Uganda Argus (1962-71), the Voice of Uganda (1971-79), the Uganda Times (1980- 1986), and the more successful 12-year-old The New Vision (since 1987). The New Vision, which has four vernacular sister newspapers, has derived its success from a combination of factors, including taking a generally independent editorial line (surprising, considering it is state-owned/government-controlled) rather than bowing to the official government line. Also, it gets all the lucrative government-related advertising business.
The 1990s brought important technological changes to the print media in the form of computers, facsimile, and better printing presses. The next step was to place newspapers on a firm financial footing and harness the power of a print media that would appeal to readers. Also, to utilise the new communication facilities and maintain well-developed editorial forces. Deadline pressures and the rush for big circulations have led to investment in bigger and faster printing presses, while the pressure for readership has seen the rise of a variety in presentation, the use of colour printing, and aggressive marketing.
There were three major events in the early 1990s that have shaped the contemporary history of the print media:
1) Uganda Confidential
The first was the emergence of Uganda Confidential, a periodical newsletter which led a corruption clean-up crusade early in the 1990s, thus focusing the attention of the print media on fighting corruption that had taken definitive shape in the country. Uganda Confidential and its editor, Teddy Seezi Cheeye, inspired fear among public officials at the time. However, over the years it has lost its punch, due to the many civil defamation suits brought against the publication by politicians, businessmen, parastatal managers and technocrats in government. The publication suffered heavy damages that drove it to receivership and the brink of collapse. The pressure to stay in business saw it losing its energy.
2) The Monitor
The second was the establishment of The Monitor, the first newspaper independently owned by a Ugandan journalist which has managed to survive, unlike so many of its contemporaries. The Monitor was founded in 1992 by a group of journalists who were previously working with the Weekly Topic, a critical but respected newspaper highly regarded by its readers. However, it was owned by three politicians, Jaberi Bidandi Ssali, Kintu Musoke, and Ali Kirunda Kivejinja, who have been cabinet ministers and have held senior government jobs since 1986. It was, thus, difficult for the newspaper to remain independent and criticise the government.
Led by journalist Wafula Oguttu, a group of journalists left the Weekly Topic and founded The Monitor. The Monitor first started out as a weekly. Meanwhile, the Weekly Topic tried to become a daily newspaper with the title of the Daily Topic -þ until it folded a few years later. Truth to say, The Monitor effectively drove the Weekly Topic out of business. Then The Monitor ran into trouble following its critical reporting of the government. The government banned all government-sponsored advertisements in the newspaper. An air of imminent death hung over The Monitor, but it trudged on to eventual success despite the crippling four-year ban. The ban was lifted in 1997.
3) The East African
The third was the entry into the Ugandan market of The East African newspaper, a product of the Nairobi, Kenya-based Nation Group owned by the Agha Khan. The East African is a quality weekly regional (catering for readers in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda) newspaper. It is currently the only quality English-language weekly serving Uganda. But the entry of the Nation Group into the Ugandan newspaper market has not stopped there. The group is understood to be interested in buying The New Vision, whose privatisation is still hanging in the balance, and is reported to be engaged in talks with the owners of The Monitor to buy it. The Nation Group wants to have a strong footing in Uganda.
Since the entry of The Monitor, the print media has been growing, albeit with the rise of only two strong English-language dailies, The Monitor and The New Vision, plus one vernacular daily, Bukedde. The Crusader, an independent thrice-weekly established in December 1995 (as a weekly) by ten professional journalists who had left The Monitor, was, until April 1999 when it folded, in the process of becoming a fourth daily. With it died the hope of getting a second strong independent alternative voice in Uganda in the foreseeable future.
Mention should also be made of the English-language Sunday Monitor and the Sunday Vision; both products of the two dailies.
The vernacular press has also grown, albeit under The New Vision family, which, as a group, circulates a combined 370,000 copies per week. The four vernacular newspapers under The New Vision are: Bukedde (a Luganda-language daily catering to central region); Orumuri (a weekly catering for the western region); Rupiny (a weekly catering for Luo speakers); Etop (a weekly catering for Ateso speakers).
The well-known dailies, Munno and Ngabo are, however, no longer in circulation. Ngabo was an independent daily which published during the 1980s and the early 1990s. It folded leaving the field clear for Bukedde. This has, however, adversely affected Bukedde, having denied it a worthy competitor. Ngabo was ostensibly replaced by the Njuba Times which had initially raised hopes of an alternative voice, it has since seen its fortunes dwindle drastically.
The tremendous development of the business side of the leading newspapers, is manifest in the new era of corporate journalism where the editor-owner or editor-manager commands a complex enterprise. These editor-owners or editor-managers are animated by the core traditional values of journalism, and driven by the values of free enterprise and competitiveness. The leading newspapers have become complex business institutions, with side businesses in printing and publishing. The scramble for advertising and circulation supremacy, widespread technological investments, capital investments, larger payrolls and more difficult labour relations, increasing concern over the price of newsprint and its supply, taxation, and other problems, have brought about the rise of what can best be described as a "managerial corps" in newspaper publishing. The newspapers have wavered the onslaught, since December 1993, of private FM radio which made inroads in advertising budgets of corporations.
Journalism is now a decent and attractive profession, and the hiring, retention, and promotion patterns in the newspapers, reflect the general emphasis on recruiting trained journalists. Specialisation is an evolving concept taking root in the newspapers, while commentary by independent-minded writers is also becoming more prevalent and an enduring aspect of Uganda's newspaper world. The newspapers have recruited more women reporters and editing staff, and introduced gender and children's pages. There is, however, room for more interpretative reporting and proper background of news, specialist coverage of critical issues, and commentary on national issues.
The 1990s has also been a golden era for photojournalism, as a number of outstanding photographers capture the compelling moments on camera to bring them to thousands of readers. Political cartoonists who focus attention on the main issues of the day by satirising or caricaturing, are also having a good time.
But there are other dimensions to these developments. Firstly, given the absence of an Opposition under the "no-party movement" political system, the press in Uganda has, in addition to being critical so as to form public opinion and promote good governance, increasingly become the unofficial opposition. Government criticism of the Press takes the shape of accusations such as: Eroding cultural and social values; feeding the public a steadily diet of bad news; reporting issues sensationally, irresponsibly and unprofessionally.
Secondly, media credibility and journalism ethics have become enduring popular discussion topics, not only among scholars, social forces and government, but among journalists themselves, as subjects of continuous self-criticism and appraisal. Those within the profession are responding to the challenges and criticisms, with efforts to improve the Media. The efforts include improving professional working conditions, writing a voluntary Code of Conduct (which was unfortunately hijacked and made into law in the Press and Journalist Statute 1995), establishing specialised professional organisation devoted to the high purposes of journalism, encouraging and supporting journalism education and training, starting journalism reviews, and defending the Press against governmental and other pressures.
Thirdly, while the press enjoys some latitude of freedom to publish and criticise, the battle for freedom of expression and to criticise without prior restraint, and the right to have access to information in the possession of the state according to the Constitution, continue to be major concerns of journalists. The government's power to control the ways in which opinions are expressed is a reminder of what can happen to those who go overboard. The government has occasionally arrested, detained and prosecuted journalists on charges of sedition and publication of false news. This is in spite of the generally cordial relationship between President Yoweri Museveni and the Press. He was the first Ugandan president to schedule regular quarterly meetings with newspaper editors and publishers, and regular press conferences upon return home from foreign trips. Recently, however, this interaction between the President and the Press has somewhat lessened.
In a nutshell, there is no doubt that the growth of a limited number of newspapers as carefully managed profitable corporations is continuing. But examining figures carefully - The Monitor, The New Vision, and Bukedde, have a combined print run of some 80,000 copies daily. This means the ratio of newspaper circulation to total population is dismal (one copy for eleven people of the reading public), casting Uganda as having one of the lowest newspaper circulations per capita in the world.
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