The Monitor’s debacle has clouded the air around the state and the media
Onapito Ekomoloit To The Point
IN the wake of the ongoing trials and tribulations of The Monitor, the
newspaper where I cut my journalistic teeth in, it’s conceivable that some
journalists now see President Yoweri Museveni an enemy of press freedom.
I dare say, nothing could be further from the truth. Of course, the police
action against the “Independent Voice” heavily blurs such scribes’ current
thinking. They may no doubt dismiss my assertion as nothing more than the
rumbling of a salaried lap-dog.
I make no apologies, but will maintain to the hilt that Museveni is still the
best ally of the Ugandan media, the state action against The Monitor
notwithstanding.
The uproar from within and without the country over the temporarily shut-down
of The Monitor clearly shows that it was something unthinkable. Why?
Unlimited media freedom in Uganda was being taken for granted that many of us
became oblivious to any laws governing it.
True to his inaugural 1986 speech about effecting a “fundamental change” in
the country, Museveni unrecognisably changed the media scene in Uganda. From
one state broadcaster in 1986, the country is today awash with radio and TV
stations. Few of us can name even a half of them.
And not only are the FM radios alive and kicking, but they also bite. One
cannot help hearing the echoes of the song Who let the dogs out? while
listening to FM radio talk shows.
The print media industry, on the other hand, has seen newspapers and
magazines come, flourish and go, with scant attention from to the state to
the goings-on inside them.
It’s no overstatement to say that Museveni’s government was the pacesetter
in demystifying private broadcasting in the region. At a time when Ugandans
have lost count of their FM stations, both Kenya and Tanzania can each only
talk of a dozen or so media houses on air. One will even appreciate more what
Museveni has done to free the dogs of press freedom, when juxtaposed with the
situation in a neighbouring country. A presidential aide in that country
confided in me that they could not fathom the level of media freedom in
Uganda. He said the kind of media debate in Uganda, particularly on FM
radios, was unthinkable in their country, and he thought the Museveni
government was breeding a monster. Given the happenings at The Monitor, it
would appear like his prophecy has come true. But time will tell that it is
just a passing storm; media freedom, thanks to Museveni, is here to stay. To
be precise, it is here to stay at least for as long as Museveni is the chief
tenant at State House and calling the shots. This is so because there are
some attack-dog press haters lurking in the shadows. It is only the President
holding them in restraint.
In the behind-the-scenes government debates on controversial media issues,
such as the ebimeeza (open-air talk shows), positions as extreme as shutting
them down have been floated by bonafide media haters. Little known to the
unsuspecting media, it is President Museveni who has always saved their day.
The President’s preferred response to perceived hostility in talk shows,
especially when it is mere politicking, has been to answer fire with fire. He
has gone to the extent of making impromptu calls into talk shows to correct
lies, as he did one time on CBS FM.
Similarly, the President is on the verge of becoming an accomplished
columnist, always writing exhaustive replies to distortions that will have
appeared in the newspapers.
In ‘closed’ meetings with editors and even reporters (as was the case in
Gulu recently), the President goes the extra mile explaining the
inside/confidential workings of government. He does this in the understanding
that the media, a.k.a. Fourth Estate, are stakeholders in the running to the
country.
Elsewhere, journalists who are sometimes frustrated by delays in securing
one-on-one interviews with the President should blame it on the traditional
bureaucracy that surrounds him. Evidence? Journalists who have ‘crashed’ on
the President, and directly made their case for interviews, will testify that
they have never been disappointed. Of course, the President often jokes about
journalists as ‘rumour mongers,’ but it is all in good faith.
But where the President draws a red line, and has made it known, is the
question of national security, especially in the aftermath of the September
11, 2001 terrorist attack on the United States. September 11, as it is now
famously called, changed the world and made it paranoid. It showed that
terrorists, the likes of Joseph Kony’s LRA, will sink to any level to get
their way. Subsequently, all including the media must be on the watch because
terrorists use the innocent.
The Monitor is caught in this September 11 web. But it is an isolated
incident, and it will
pass away.
Ends
Published on: Friday, 18th October, 2002
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