Monitor and the New Vision

First off I want to apologize for this post getting to everybody so late. Still feeling the effects of the lacking internet service in Uganda, I was looking through some of our posts and noticed that my post about the Newspapers didn't actually get uploaded. This is my feeble attempt at trying to recollect what I wrote the first time. Hopefully it's just as enthralling. (I had planned on including a few pictures, but as some of you know, most of them I accidently deleted.)

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Today, we received a rather interesting lecture from a news editor of The New Vision. The speaker John Kakande spoke about their future plans to acquire a TV station, and explained that they were doing this to remain competitive with other newspapers. He noted that The Vision produces about 35,000 copies of their newspaper a day. Kakande also spoke quite a bit about government control. The government manages to keep a pretty close eye on The Vision by prohibiting them to promote things like homosexuality or terrorism. They're allowed to talk about them, but not promote them, not even a quote that promotes it. I asked him at the end of the presentation why he thought the government prohibited the promotion of things like that, and he said, in summary, that they government is doing this to protect the society's views. I wondered if it wasn't normal for the society to be able to filter their own information and decide for themselves what's right and wrong.

What is your opinion on the government's strict control for what information the newspapers publish?

My favorite part of the day was when we got to tour The Monitor. I love to see how people organize large machines, and their operations, to all work together to put out a final product. I was somewhat surprised to see the kind of technology they had up and running here. Some of their printers were pretty advanced. We got to see every step of the process. Where the writers published their pieces, to layout and design, and printing. We then ended the day with what I'm sure was an interesting lecture, which I had to miss because I was not feeling so well.

Lastly, how do you think the newspapers of Uganda contribute to sustainable development?