Of Uganda Airlines and its money from the dead

On Tuesday, I received a note from a reader regarding the story headlined, “Uganda Airlines makes Shs240m from transporting dead bodies,” (Daily Monitor, July 11) with the following comments: “What is the agenda? All airlines carry dead bodies! This is not even funny! Or patriotic!”  [A Uganda Airlines Spokesperson shared exact comments, which editors responded to, in the context they were just not a  “ reader”- Editor]

I didn’t have any immediate answers. I read the story, nonetheless, and reflected on a few things from the perspective of the reader, and also from a writer and editor confronted with such a story.

First from the reader(s). What prompted him/her to flag this story is the question of “so what?” which is clearly seen in the remark that after all every airline carries dead bodies and earns from it, so what’s the big deal here? Why is Uganda Airlines being fingered out specifically?
Well, death is feared and associated with bad imageries, even though it lives around us and we all know that no one that lives will not die at some point in time. Wherever we die from, we will have to be moved to our final resting place by whichever means necessary, convenient, or affordable to our living kith and kin.

In the process, there will be many necessary contact points between the dead and the living. These include the hospital, the morgue, the hearse (air or road), the coffin makers, the grave diggers, etc. These are very essential to life (and death) yet society ascribes to them negative imagery because we hate death. We thus often miss the vital role they play in helping the living to put their dead to rest – of course at a fee. Instead, all we see is them earning money off the dead!

From an ordinary reader’s perspective therefore, and I believe from airline players in general, this story ascribed negativity to Uganda Airlines as profiting from the dead to the tune of Shs240m in two years just “transporting dead bodies” since it confined itself to the money.

For a reporter and editor, this is the typical man-bite dog story that is difficult to ignore! For a long time, journalism has subsisted on morbid news to feed the morbid curiosity of the journalists and their audiences.

Morbid curiosity, for the benefit of those that may not know, “generally refers to an interest in all things grisly and grotesque which includes being fascinated with gore, violence, horror, and death…this fascination with [morbid journalism – so to speak], should not, however, reach such heights that it turns into obsession and at a point we become insensitive.”

I have written severally in this space about macabre coverage of deaths in our media, including publishing photographs of coffins inside the grave presumably as proof that the deceased was indeed buried, or images of the dead – all without due sensitivity to the bereaved or common decency, but just to feed our morbid curiosity.

Anyway, back to the “flying hearse”, the story was ironically sourced from the horse’s mouth – so to speak! Apparently, the information was shared by Mr Morris Ongwech, the manager in charge of cargo at Uganda Airlines at a “media lab” (read training) organised by Uganda Airlines!
So on the reporter-editor checklist, it ticked two critical boxes: it was accurate and factual.

This is exactly what Uganda Airlines CEO Jenifer Bamuturaki had extolled the journalists to do when she addressed them at the training. She said: “We are not saying you sweep the dirt under the carpet but when reporting about the national carrier which is a very sensitive business globally, ensure you report from an informed and factual point of view.”  What it did not seem to tick, at least from reading the story, were three critical things: context, perspective, and the “so what?”  For example, the story did not tell us whether the manager was responding to a particular question or simply pulled the statistics out of his hair. 

What perspective did these figures bring to us in comparative terms? How much, for example, did Kenya Airways, Ethiopian, Emirates, etc that also fly into Entebbe earn from flying dead bodies into Uganda in the same period? What difference has Uganda Airlines made in transporting dead bodies in terms of market share and cost? Are Ugandans that have brought back their dead happy with this service or not? Was this the most important story to tell about Uganda Airlines at this point?
Had these questions been asked, chances are the story would not have run in the form it did, the time it did – or at all. 

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