Bloggers might lack diplomas but they, too, have constitutional rights

The deregulation of the media industry in Uganda in the early 1990s saw a proliferation of new radio and television stations, as well as small print titles. The resulting demand for journalistic talent was so great, the undergraduate Mass Communication course at Makerere University became the most-sought-after overnight and would continue to be for many years.

To regulate the bustling media space, the Press and Journalist’s Act was passed in 1995, creating the National Institute of Journalists (NIJU) as the membership body, and the Media Council as the regulator. NIJU was stillborn because of two provisions: One requiring academic qualifications, and another requiring an annual practicing certificate.

Many of the folks in the newsrooms were clever, brave journalists who had survived the Idi Amin and Obote regimes by sheer luck or cunning. But many had spent more time in the newsroom than in classrooms and lacked the qualifications the law required. They were thus hostile to the law and added their voices to the separate cries and concerns about registration potentially being used to stifle media freedom.

A quarter of a century later, the question of who a journalist is and what qualifies one to be remains unanswered in Uganda. What the law gave in terms of minimum qualifications and the institutions to certify and regulate has been eroded by that early suspicion, resistance from the old hands, who couldn’t be bothered to return to school, and developments in the industry.

The results are mixed. We have an industry in which all manner of characters, having failed in all other facets of life, including as hunter-gatherers or pursuers and punishers of rural and peri-urban reptiles, wander in an out of newsrooms claiming to be journalists. In some quarters, it resembles the wild west, with neither facts nor ethics ever being allowed to stand in the way of a good story. But it is also a vibrant and creative place in which all our collective flaws and foibles are reflected, in which the tragedy of the commons is played back in real time, half-lived, half-reported.

After what must be the longest nap in recent institutional history, the Media Council recently announced its intention to register all journalists as provided by law, with the unregistered not being allowed to practice. Many newsrooms are shooketh.

The Uganda Editors’ Guild, which your columnist and a few others is helping to babysit, has pointed out three problems with the Media Council directive. First, the timeline given is unreasonable at the best of times, ridiculous in the middle of a pandemic and an election.

Second is the small matter of the law. It says one is enrolled as a journalist by NIJU, then given a practicing certificate by the Council. But NIJU has been dead for decades and, therefore, can’t or isn’t enrolling journalists. Can you certify one who hasn’t been enrolled? The Council’s own composition is supposed to include representatives nominated by NIJU and another defunct body, the Uganda Newspaper Proprietors and Editor’s Association, UNEPA. We need to be careful not to break the law in the process of trying to enforce it.

Thirdly, the world has changed a lot in the last two decades. Anyone with a mobile phone today can publish a website, run an online radio station and even broadcast live. All they need is data, not a diploma. It is neither feasible nor desirable to try and register or certify every blogger or Instagrammer creating and disseminating news and information.

It is time for us to write a new media law, not try to implement one that is clearly obsolete. Most self-respecting journalists I know – and there are many – are concerned about quality deficits in the profession and are willing to propose ways to make the industry more accountable and transparent. The formation of the Editors’ Guild and a soon-to-be published code of conduct, reflect these internal concerns and steps to improve the standards to which we must commit.

But the pursuit of professionalism should not be at the expense of freedom. The right to receive and disseminate information is clear in our Constitution, and our courts have made it clear that these rights exist to protect people who say things we might not like or want to hear.

 The law is also clear on the limitations to these rights, say in the case of libel or inciting violence, and the due process required to prove these offences. We are happy to work with the Media Council and Mr Above, the issuer of orders, to pursue professionalism in legal and constitutional ways.

Mr Kalinaki is a journalist and poor man’s freedom fighter.

[email protected] @Kalinaki