Maurice Mugisha: His 12 years at NTV-Uganda

Twelve years ago, Maurice Mugisha was among the team of young journalists at the freshly starting NTV Uganda. He now speaks of a journey that has been full of several milestones and conquering as he bade farewell to the place, he for years called home. He embarks on what he describes as a new challenge after NTV-Uganda.

How it started
Talking about the early years of NTV Uganda lights up and brings back fond memories for Mugisha.
“It was such an exciting time for us to have a new kid on the block called NTV Uganda. We were a young team of fresh graduates and people who had just started out in journalism. Some from different parts of the country, with different ideas and goals so it was a unique opportunity for us to be able to begin this journey with a new organisation that had its own new ideas on what it wanted to do in Uganda,” Mugisha reminisces.

To them, NTV was a mode of employment as well as an opportunity to do something they loved since it was heavily news-driven and reporters/ anchors made the bulk of the employees. Coming from WBS where he was a sports news anchor for three years, NTV then became the place he has grown through the ranks across the years. From being a reporter, anchor to becoming an editor and finally, the head of news.

“For me, it has been exciting to be part of that growth and change at the organization. We started out as a very small Kampala based TV station but every single year, we found ourselves growing as a station but also as individuals - our journalism going places. Many of us managed to at least get an opportunity to work and train in different countries across the world and now, we are a national TV station that broadcasts almost across the country,” Mugisha shares.

Opportunity
Further still, he counts it as an opportunity to have been part of the game changers and face of the change of journalism in Uganda as a country.

“From when you had just about three print media organisations, a couple of radio stations and TV stations; to now, when we have hundreds of radio stations, dozens of TV stations and a couple of print organisations plus, online publications and the many transformations from the conventional news to the new media and multimedia journalism. That for me has been a beautiful journey,” Mugisha agrees.

Why leave NTV
Last year, his then colleagues at NTV bade him an emotional farewell. However, leaving NTV for Mugisha, comes with mixed feelings.

“It feels weird leaving after all these years. This was home. NTV was part of me. My life has literally been about NTV. I have given NTV almost my life,” he notes, adding, “A lot of people never thought I would leave NTV, even as my colleagues left and joined other media houses and organisations. I heard people say, ‘It’s never going to be possible for Maurice to leave NTV’ and I probably believed it. But I guess I grew up and a couple of things changed.”

The change
“I didn’t know what I would have done outside NTV and whether I would take an opportunity if it presented itself. And yes, there were opportunities that came and I never took them. At this stage, I had just turned 40, and I started asking myself, ‘beyond NTV what can I do? Is it possible that there was something else I could do other than what I have been doing at NTV? Or is there a contribution I can make outside of what I have already been doing at NTV?’ So, when this challenge came up, I said, ‘why not’. And I am happy to contribute as much as I can with what I have learnt at NTV and Nation Media Group,” Mugisha explains.

Moving forward, Mugisha is deputy managing director at the national broadcaster, UBC.
“I am excited for the new challenge and to be part of this new transition at UBC and to be able to make an input,” he enthusiastically says.

Good times, and the bad
Though there have been bad times, Mugisha is keen to say he has had more of the good times - which were great.
“The starting of the station was some of the best times. The different people we have worked with, the managers we have had, the different supervisors I have had on the job, the presenters, fellow anchors – I got to pair with some of the best anchors in the country and it was amazing because every one of them had a uniqueness they brought,” he happily notes.
The other of his good times where the 2011 and 2016 elections.

“You got to have a whole remake of the studio, recruit a couple of more people, acquire new equipment and new technologies. We moved to using satellite transmission, to being able to do live transmissions across the country, to backpack journalism where one can cover and broadcast live in any part of the country and world. All these milestones kept us excited and on our toes,” he recalls.

The highlight for him was when NTV was shut down in 2007, for a couple of months and interestingly, the several people - both Ugandans who had watched NTV turning on Uganda and different stakeholders: politicians, advertisers that tried to get the Serena based station back on air.

“The other sad part were the many letters we got from the regulator on what we could and couldn’t do. Or the many times we were asked to defend certain decisions we had made or certain broadcasts we had put on air at either the ministry of Information or at the regulator (Uganda Communications Commission), and never ever found at fault. These processes however, took quite a toll on us,” he recalls.

Work and family, striking the balance
In comparison to any other traditional jobs, journalism comes unique in its mode of work. It is not the 8-5 kind of job, but one where someone can work 12 to 15 hours a day, and sometimes 18 hours. Being newly married by the time he joined NTV, doing his job must have come at a price.

“My wife, who had done journalism understood the kind of business I was going into and what it meant. So, it was quite easy for us to adapt to it. And growing into the industry was a process that could only work in a relationship with someone who understands, but also grounds you. My family made it easier for me to do my job,” he prides.

Issues of ethics are an integral part of every profession and as head of news, Mugisha’s position meant he had to do things by the book. To help him with ethical challenges, he had the NMG editorial policy to fall back on.

“Whether called by someone to kill a story, somebody at office asking to give more prominence to a particular story, or covering a minority group, covering the opposition or public protests, meetings, strikes, you would run back there and know the rules. I think I read the editorial policy about 100 times in my time at NTV.”

He also shares that one cannot run away from intimidation, blackmail, colleagues or someone in authority telling them to do something against their will, “or certain things we did or didn’t do. The editorial policy always gave us the cover,” he says.

We at NMG wish you a prosperous journey.