Uganda’s news deserts

When not reporting on this waste, the other headlines focus on police and army brutality meted out on Opposition leaders, their supporters, and political and human rights activists.
Most of last week was spent covering the parliamentary by-election in Kawempe North and all the ensuing violence, including a brazen attack on journalists covering the campaigning and voting.

This heavy-handedness since the 2000 General Election campaign has given the main Opposition party or candidate of the day a substantial sympathy vote. While this has been to their advantage, it has distorted the entire political process.

Candidates with barely acceptable academic qualifications or public administration skills have been elected to Parliament purely on the grounds of this sympathy vote.
This was seen during the FDC’s heyday from 2006 to 2016 and with NUP’s strong first-time showing in the 2021 election.

Most of these beneficiaries of the sympathy vote were last heard speaking in a parliamentary session on the day of their taking the oath of office.
If we discard the many newspaper and TV headlines reporting on the Lubowa hospital, the waste in the Parish Development Model programme, various corruption scandals, and the political violence, what has gone undiscussed?

For a start, technical reporting on the state of the country’s economy. How much did the Source of the Nile Bridge in Jinja opened in 2017 ease congestion entering into and leaving Jinja?
How is Uganda Airlines performing financially since its revival? What chances that it will become profitable one day, if ever?

What is the latest with the petroleum construction and drilling in the Albertine area of Bunyoro? Given the rate of adoption of electric vehicles in North America, Europe, and Asia, won’t Uganda start oil production a decade too late?

What is the state of the country’s universities in the face of the advancing digital transformation and march to artificial intelligence as a software-based productivity tool? Are they still fit for purpose?

Are even the new curricula from primary school to A-Level upgraded enough to meet the new Internet era?
How are Uganda’s embassies and high commissions? Are they still the sorr sights with decaying furniture that we often hear about?

How far has the Ugandan-built road in eastern Congo gone? Any update on the impact it is having on the local econmy and Ugandan exports into Congo, over the miles it has covered so far?
Any audit on the network of new municipal roads that have been built or which are still being worked on in the major towns? If the reason for the roads was to stimulate the economy, are there tangible signs of this?

And Uganda’s foreign debt portfolio, how is that going? The government seems to turn more and more to external and domestic borrowing just to service its debt obligations. Is this sustainable?

What this means, in other words, is that if Uganda was a sane state, with a government that respects the constitutions and its own election pledges, the bulk of national news coverage should be technocratic and policy-based, the kind we see in, say, British publications like the Economist, Financial Times, or Daily Telegraph.

All through the year, Parliament should be absorbed in an extended discussion of the Ministry of Finance’s booklet, the background to the Budget.
However, lest I seem a little hard on the NRM government, I will repeat a view I have stated several times, that the news media is as guilty of neglecting its duty to report on behalf of society.

Last December during the Christmas season, I wrote two articles here on life in upcountry Uganda. It was the first time in quite a while that I got a sizeable response from readers and the chattering crowd on social media.

It confirmed my conviction that with its obsession with politics and reporting on a few ‘big men’ in Kampala and political developments in Kampala, the media has neglected three-quarters of the country that we call upcountry.
The people on Jinja, Arua, Mbarara, Tororo, Masaka, Hoima, Kabale, Gulu, Mbale, Bushenyi, Busia, Fort Portal, Lira, Masindi, Mukono, Kasese, Iganga, Kisoro, Mubende, and dozens of other towns do not see enough of their towns or themselves in the pages of our newspapers.

To the Kampala-based media, upcountry coverage is by-election campaigns, the President’s upcountry tours, a refugee crisis at the Congo border, or natural disasters in Kasese and Bugisu from time to time.
Next to nothing is said of the ordinary lives, places, and events in upcountry Uganda.

What’s more, for all the perception that the smartphone has made everyone a citizen journalist, there is even less information and content from upcountry Uganda on social media than in traditional media.
A few locally-focused online publications have been started in Entebbe, Mbarara, Jinja, Mbale, and other towns and, of course, practically every upcountry Ugandan town has a radio station.

But they are at best lacklustre and fall back into the default position of reporting on major Kampala political events.
During general election campaign stops by presidential candidates, the accompanying media from Kampala often gives better coverage of the rallies than the local FM radio stations.
If anything, the near-absence of content from the outlying districts and towns on social media demonstrates that journalism is a profession and an art.

Not everybody with a smartphone in their hand or pocket has the instinct, training, artistry, and organisation to sense a news moment and to go ahead and capture it.
The mainstream news media, given its current existential crisis and financial struggle, needs to think seriously about its upcountry coverage, as well as deeper coverage of areas within the five divisions of Kampala.

There are whole news deserts across Uganda waiting to be approached and documented by the media.
The huge and addicted crowds on social media are an indication that there is a deep hunger for news and information in society.