‘Baboons’, clergy, e-paper and what’s wrong with Spark TV?

Odoobo C. Bichachi

Our esteemed readers, viewers and listeners, this week I dedicate the entire space to you to give it to us as it is. Have your say!
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Kaziro Abbas: I have subscribed to the e-paper a number of times. I have even ever subscribed for six months but lately, my money just gets wasted, reason being most of the time, Twitter posts direct me to the e-paper link. I subscribe for the weekly payment but most of the pages can’t be read because they are blurry. Thank you.

Public Editor (PE): Thanks for your feedback. The pages of our e-paper are deliberately blurred to protect against copying or screen printing. However, if you click on the story, it opens in a readable format.
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George Semakuka: I am responding to your request for feedback from readers. My issue is with the very poor quality of crosswords in the Daily Monitor.
PE: Thanks for bringing this up. I have brought it to the attention of the editors concerned. I shall make a follow up and revert.
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Philip Paluku Bahati bin Kikule: In the Friday paper [January 3] page 9, Cissy Makumbi and Stephen Okello quoted Archbishop John Baptist Odama castigating vote buying, referring to him as “the Primate”. Besides meaning “Prelate”, this word is also used to describe apes – baboons, chimpanzees, monkeys, etc. Journalists should be encouraged to use more commonly used vocabulary.
If “prelate” is more common than “primate”, why not use the former?
PE: You are right. The rule of thumb in communication is that the simpler, the better.
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Talibita Moses: Congrats on your first 2020 article! The feedback mechanism indeed proves that NMG values our money! Just thinking, if Daily Monitor provided on order an all-year compendium of newspapers, it can earn extra from some of us who love reading hard copy, but also help academicians find reference materials.

Take for instance, the lawyers perusing a law report called Daily Monitor Law report with an in depth digest of cases say those on corruption or “judicialisation” of our democracy or rule of law, I think my Daily Monitor paper would have turned more relevant to my profession. I invite you to take a cue, thanks.
PE: Your proposal is well noted. It shall be shared with management team. Thank you!
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Steven Israel Tusubira: Your story about how former schools of prominent leaders performed in PLE had a glaring error. Professor Mary Okwakol, the chairperson of Uneb, attended St Michael Namunyumya Girls Boarding Primary School whose performance is always much better than Namunyumya Mixed Primary School [that we claimed she attended] which is a classic “third world” school always managing one or none at all in division one.

This error is lifted directly from last year’s story which you never corrected even after I had brought it to your attention.
PE: This is a regrettable error. I have advised the editorial management to publish a correction.
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Mukisa Joshua: Your coverage of our interests has been tremendous in 2019. Hopefully it’ll be the same this year. The news team on NTV has been superb. But why is the Sport Today show no longer airing? We have been watching it at 12.30pm, but now in place is Ninja Warriors and which episodes are repeated.

As for Daily Monitor, keep it up! We, however, need more sports news, especially European football, which is not given priority in the sports section. Thank you.
PE: Josephine Karungi, NTV news manager says, the Sport Today show resumed on January 13. You can now lookout for the show. Apologies for the break.
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Aziz Tezikuba: I’ve seen a “Your participation” advert in Daily Monitor newspaper and I am very grateful for the chance to voice my concerns and observations. I’ve taken a very keen interest in Nation Media Group since I returned to Uganda after a 10-year stint in the UK. It surely was a breath of fresh air and I thank you all for the quality and class in one of your TV stations, NTV.

Sadly, its sister station, Spark TV, is really a mess - from wrong camera angles to entire shows running with no volume at all! Spark TV was launched as the hoyed/gossip TV with local content, but the way it is strewn together is appalling. Something should be done to match NTV’s class and prestige. Once again, I thank all of you for the vision that is Nation Media Group.
PE: Thank you. We take this feedback seriously. It has been shared with the broadcast editors.

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