The times they are a-changing and truth can’t be paid to remain silent

A few years ago, this newspaper wrote an article that annoyed the top officials in one of the government ministries. I do not remember the contents of the article, or what exactly annoyed the officials; they never got around to pointing it out.

What they did, however, was to cut off advertising to the newspaper. In addition, the key officials in this ministry have gone out of their way to make sure that even projects that fall under it – including those funded by donors – do not advertise in the newspaper. So for many years now that ministry and its tributaries have not spent a single cent in advertising in the newspaper.

Instead, they splurge on media outlets, many of them fringe without any audiences of note, but whose coverage of the ministry is always positive, and which mollycoddles its officials. The compact seems to be that these media outlets write only good things about the ministry, and they get patted on the head and handed advertising biscuits.
Here is the problem. Actually, there are many problems. First, by messaging to miniscule audiences, the ministry doesn’t get value for money – but this is the least of them.

The second, and the reason the officials are okay with the first problem, is that the money they spend is actually not their money. Government ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) are primarily funded from the Consolidated Fund, which is replenished by our taxes. These taxes include those paid by this newspaper, its workers, its many readers, and millions more Ugandans.

When a public official takes public money and uses it to shield themselves from public scrutiny, or to burnish their personal reputations they are abusing their office. They create an impression that they are good stewards who are delivering services to the public but no amount of lipstick can turn a pig into a princess.
A private company upset by media coverage is perfectly within its rights to spend its money on outlets that publish only that which pleases it. A government official on the other hand, unless they sold cattle on their farm and are using it to pay for said advertising, is not.

The quality of service that government MDAs provide is that which taxpayers receive and experience when they attend their various facilities, not what might be proclaimed in glossy propaganda brochures. In remaining silent, donors have allowed their money to be used to hide its abuse. And they are supposed to be the smart ones.
Troublingly, this weaponization of taxpayer money to fool citizens is neither new nor isolated. This newspaper survived a four-year, government-wide advertising ban in the 1990s triggered by articles whose only “crime” was to show areas in which the government could use taxpayer money better.

This weaponization has become more widespread and decentralised today. It has been facilitated by the rise of media platforms whose first obligation is neither to truth nor the audience, but to profit and the singular maximisation of shareholder value.
On the 30th anniversary of World Press Freedom Day this has become perhaps one of the most dangerous and insidious threats to that freedom: media houses whose efforts to stay in business have led them to abandon the fight to stay in journalism. Some, to be fair, were never in journalism in the first place.

But the times, they are a-changing. Two recent social media campaigns against the crumbling roads around the city, and the shocking state of the public health sector, have shown a glimpse of the power of engaged citizens and the opportunities digital media provide to side-step censorship, including advertising-induced self-censorship.
You can punish media houses that expose your shortcomings and reward those that mask your inadequacies, but how do you suffocate thousands of citizens with first-hand experience of your mediocre service and the ability to share those experiences amongst themselves? The short answer is that you can’t.

The genie of freedom of expression is out of the bottle. Citizens want accurate and unbiased information on which they can rely to make informed decisions. They want to know when government officials and agencies get it right. And they want to know when they get it wrong so that they can inform the reform, or seek alternative leadership.
As we shall see next week, citizens can ensure that the tide in this information war shifts into their hands and gives them power over both government bureaucrats and the media.

Mr Kalinaki is a journalist and  poor man’s freedom fighter. 
[email protected]; @Kalinaki