Greetings From Uganda
One of the more interesting characters I met at a Poynter Institute editor workshop last year was Joseph Were, a newspaper journalist from Uganda. Joseph is polite, friendly and soft-spoken, personality traits that belie his treacherous daily working conditions.
Freedom of Speech isn't as guaranteed over there as it is in the United States. Not even close. If the government doesn't like what you print, it might send heavily armed police or even the military to storm in, make arrests and shut down your publication.
While at Poynter, a Florida training ground for journalists, Joseph told us the story of one particularly nasty raid in which he managed to send out a desperate message as armed soldiers pointed guns at him and told him to step away from the computer. Yes, the PC is mightier than the machine gun, even in Uganda.
However, newspaper reporters there are on the take. Sources pay them to write stories a certain way. Newspaper wages are so low there, Joseph says, that reporters won't work for you unless they can get that supplemental income.
In the United States, this kind of thing would get a reporter fired on the spot. Clean out your desk. You're out of here.
Joseph during the past year has continued to update his fellow Poynter alums regarding the tenuous relationship his publication has had with the government. Every day is spent in fear of a shutdown.
Lately, the news has been worse than usual.
Last Thursday, about 20 armed police late at night surrounded and entered the newspaper offices, according to an e-mail that was waiting for me this morning. The "Commissioner in Charge of Crime" suspected the newspaper of printing a poster supporting a government opposition group. The poster was pinned in various places in Kampala.
The newspaper, the Daily Monitor, did not print the poster, but an edition did carry the opposition group's half-page ad.
Following some intensive negotiations with newspaper management, the police withdrew and the presses rolled on. However, 90 or so minutes later a newspaper delivery van was stopped at a police and army roadblock. Again, it took some negotiations before the van was released. More delivery roadblocks ensued throughout the country. In some towns, there were police orders to stop newspaper delivery. In other towns, police seized the newspapers. After more negotiations, the newspaper finally was distributed.
And so it goes in the day in the life of a scrappy newspaper in the heart of a dangerous third-world country with a long history of bloody violence, human rights violations and iron-gripped tyrannical regimes.
At the Beaumont Enterprise, we grouse about how Hurricane Rita left us in a marginally uncomfortable working environment as the newsroom undergoes repairs. We work elbow-to-elbow, swat at pesky gnats and take interest in each other's phone conversations, e-mails and Internet surfing. Privacy is non-existent.
Meanwhile, Joseph and his coworkers spend their days struggling to get out another edition and wondering if and when they'll be looking down the business end of a machine gun.
Freedom of Speech isn't as guaranteed over there as it is in the United States. Not even close. If the government doesn't like what you print, it might send heavily armed police or even the military to storm in, make arrests and shut down your publication.
While at Poynter, a Florida training ground for journalists, Joseph told us the story of one particularly nasty raid in which he managed to send out a desperate message as armed soldiers pointed guns at him and told him to step away from the computer. Yes, the PC is mightier than the machine gun, even in Uganda.
However, newspaper reporters there are on the take. Sources pay them to write stories a certain way. Newspaper wages are so low there, Joseph says, that reporters won't work for you unless they can get that supplemental income.
In the United States, this kind of thing would get a reporter fired on the spot. Clean out your desk. You're out of here.
Joseph during the past year has continued to update his fellow Poynter alums regarding the tenuous relationship his publication has had with the government. Every day is spent in fear of a shutdown.
Lately, the news has been worse than usual.
Last Thursday, about 20 armed police late at night surrounded and entered the newspaper offices, according to an e-mail that was waiting for me this morning. The "Commissioner in Charge of Crime" suspected the newspaper of printing a poster supporting a government opposition group. The poster was pinned in various places in Kampala.
The newspaper, the Daily Monitor, did not print the poster, but an edition did carry the opposition group's half-page ad.
Following some intensive negotiations with newspaper management, the police withdrew and the presses rolled on. However, 90 or so minutes later a newspaper delivery van was stopped at a police and army roadblock. Again, it took some negotiations before the van was released. More delivery roadblocks ensued throughout the country. In some towns, there were police orders to stop newspaper delivery. In other towns, police seized the newspapers. After more negotiations, the newspaper finally was distributed.
And so it goes in the day in the life of a scrappy newspaper in the heart of a dangerous third-world country with a long history of bloody violence, human rights violations and iron-gripped tyrannical regimes.
At the Beaumont Enterprise, we grouse about how Hurricane Rita left us in a marginally uncomfortable working environment as the newsroom undergoes repairs. We work elbow-to-elbow, swat at pesky gnats and take interest in each other's phone conversations, e-mails and Internet surfing. Privacy is non-existent.
Meanwhile, Joseph and his coworkers spend their days struggling to get out another edition and wondering if and when they'll be looking down the business end of a machine gun.
posted by Brian Pearson at 9:51 AM
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