Peter Mwesige's Blog
Dr. Mwesige is the Executive Director of the African Centre for Media Excellence. He is a former head of the Department of Mass Communication at Makerere University, where he was also a senior lecturer, and a former executive editor of the Monitor.
Friday, 10 February 2012 13:47
Journalists should dig deeper in oil coverage
Written by Grace Natabaalo
Although the vibrancy of the Uganda media continues to grow against all odds, major challenges remain in terms of capturing the significance or relevance of the events and issues in the news. After all the passionate debate that the lack of adequate legislation on oil exploration and production generated, especially following the resolutions passed overwhelmingly by parliament last October, it is shocking and disappointing that the mainstream media have covered the tabling of the…
Wednesday, 16 November 2011 08:40
Promoting media professionalism in Uganda amidst the current challenges
Presented at a panel discussion on media professionalism, safety and protection in Uganda organised by ARTICLE 19 Eastern Africa. Saturday, 5th November, 2011 in Kampala. *** The notion of professionalism, especially in relation to journalism, is loaded. For purposes of this presentation, I don’t want to go into the enduring sociological debate on whether journalism is a profession like any other, say law, medicine, or engineering. I have taken the liberty to assume…
Monday, 14 November 2011 01:41
Poynter Institute media blogger’s departure creates firestorm over attribution
Written by Grace Natabaalo
The resignation of Jim Romenesko, a prominent media blogger from the Poynter Institute, has resurrected the attribution debate. Should bloggers/aggregators and mainstream reporters/writers be judged by different standards when it comes to attribution? Does posting links to the original stories lessen the need for quotation marks when using sentences or phrases that are not your own? Does not using quotation marks always mean plagiarism? Follow the interesting debate on the links…
Monday, 17 October 2011 09:53
Mwenda: Investigative journalist’s verification trail raises questions
Renowned journalist and media entrepreneur Andrew Mwenda has been under fire from several Ugandan journalists for his role in the investigation of documents that were tabled in Parliament last week to support allegations that Ugandan ministers received bribes from an oil company. Many journalists, ever suspicious of collaborating with government officials on sensitive stories, have accused Mwenda of selling his soul or going to bed with the enemy. Others have not gone so far,…
Thursday, 13 October 2011 10:20
Covering Uganda’s big oil debate (Part II)
Written by Peter G. Mwesige
Covering Uganda’s big oil debate (Part II) Peter G. Mwesige After two dramatic days of debate on Uganda’s oil sector, Parliament passed several resolutions before going back on recess. The media have by and large reported the resolutions accurately. However, in a couple of cases, some journalists have got it all wrong. I suspect this is because they didn’t pay attention to the amendments that were moved on some of the original resolutions. For instance,…
Tuesday, 11 October 2011 12:19
Covering Uganda’s big oil debate (Part I)
After playing hard ball, Speaker Rebecca Kadaga finally relented and recalled Parliament from recess. This followed a petition signed by more than half of Members of Parliament who wanted the House recalled to discuss issues related to the oil and gas sector, including regularising it. The debate kicked off on Monday and it had to be adjourned to Tuesday given the gravity of the matters raised. Some parliamentary reporters, ever cynical about the institution they…
Tuesday, 27 September 2011 15:30
Written by Peter G. Mwesige
Quotations: To clean up or not? Peter G. Mwesige The debate on how far journalists should go (or not go) to preserve the words of a source that is directly quoted remains as exciting as ever. In the latest of the perennial series, an African-American author complained on an American Cable TV that it was inherently racist that a wire service had transcribed President Obama's speech without cleaning it up as other outlets had done.…
Wednesday, 27 July 2011 05:25
Harsh laws won’t deliver media responsibility
Written by Peter G. Mwesige
Last Friday the African Centre for Media Excellence hosted a meeting at which we, and other media NGOs and journalists, briefed selected new members of parliament on our concerns about freedom of expression and media law in Uganda. We had done a series of such briefings with members of the old parliament, but now that nearly half of them did not return, we have started all over again. We told the MPs that although Uganda…
Friday, 17 June 2011 08:11
E. Africa’s biggest media group hires numeracy editor
The Nation Media Group (NMG), East Africa’s biggest media organisation, has decided to hire a specialist to “enforce numerical accuracy” in response to a common problem in journalism—innumeracy. “Our readers and television viewers have raised concern at the frequent inaccuracy of figures carried in NMG stories,” Joseph Odindo, the Editorial Director, wrote to the Group’s Kenyan newsrooms early this month. “We often get calculations wrong, undermining the credibility of the stories we publish.” He said…
Thursday, 09 June 2011 17:10
Press Freedom: The Uganda Paradox
With a few notable exceptions, it appears that Uganda has witnessed a more dramatic erosion of press freedom, including more attacks on journalists and the media, since the country returned to multi-party politics in 2006. Under the one-party state (1986-2005), which President Yoweri Museveni and the ruling National Resistance Movement called the Movement system or no-party democracy, press freedom remained precarious, alright, but journalists and the media appeared to enjoy more freedom than…
Major advertisers have become as a big a threat, if not worse, to press freedom in Uganda as political forces.How many political groups would have gotten away with the deceptive full page advertisement that appeared in both the Daily Monitor and The New Vision on Monday?The ad had an official looking red stamp with the words IMPORTANT.At the top, “Cellphone users of Uganda” we were told “This message is brought to you in the interest…
Wednesday, 16 March 2011 09:14
Media bow to officialdom’s threats, abdicate their responsibility
Written by Peter G. Mwesige
Call me a serial whiner, or whatever, but I must say following the release of Kampala’s mayoral election results on Monday night was painful. Clearly, the Ugandan media gave in to the Electoral Commission’s and government’s threats about the announcement of election results.The electoral body and the government had insisted before last’s month’s presidential and parliamentary elections that only the EC was mandated to announce the final results. No problem with that. But many of…
