C ORRUPTION WITHIN THE MEDIA

Other threats the media face in regard to reporting corruption relate to the poor remuneration of journalists, lack of ethical values and the culture of bribery among the public. In Uganda, most freelance journalists earn about $100 per month. Most media houses have less staff reporters compared to freelance journalists because of the costs involved. Even then, staff reporters are also still poorly paid taking a salary ranging from

$200-700 per month. For freelancers, the situation is more complex because they cannot afford to spend a lot of time investigating a complex story because their pay is based on how many stories they publish. Given that background, it is indeed a temptation to entrust a poorly paid journalist to watch-over people who have millions of dollars at their disposal.

Mukasa decries the high level of bribery within the public. He says the corrupt are very corrupt and they always believe that they can buy their way out. For this reason, he says he cannot vouch for a single reporter that he did not take a bribe for the story he/she is writing. Lugya argues that the poverty stricken nature of the Ugandan society means that there is a high possibility of being compromised. He cites an instance where a reporter could be chasing a story where someone swindled billions of shillings and then he/she is enticed with some millions, which he compares with what he may earn when the story gets published. He says one would easily be tempted to accept the bribe.

All the journalists interviewed reported that they never received any physical threat to their lives but all they got were financial promises. Muyita, a self-confessed beneficiary of bribery says:

I have ever (sic) taken money from a source but the money I took, to me, was not meant to compromise me there are stories you cannot change whether you have taken money or not because there are so many media houses and you do not know what they are going to publish. Once in a while you may be broke and someone has a lot of money to offer so you just take it and go because you are sure there is nothing they will do. There are people who do not know who you are, where you work or where you stay. They just rush to compromise anybody who crosses their path.

In his capacity as a News Editor, Mukasa reported that some of the people summoned to appear before the commission of inquiry into Global Fund tried to kill the publication in their testimonies. He says some tried to call people they knew at the newspaper like the Managing Editor, the News Editor trying to talk them into dropping their stories. He says some tried to bribe reporters but they did not succeed because the media in Uganda has proliferated. If you kill a story at one media house, it will appear in another publication.

Mukasa revealed another form of bribery used by some government officials and top businessmen.

What normally happens is that journalists are being paid to spy. They are given instructions that if you hear anything there [in your publication] about me, try and alert me. And these things have happened in the newsroom that someone may be writing a story but as soon as he submits it to the editor, you [the editor] receive a call from someone being written about saying ‘I hear you are writing this and this about me… those things are not true…’

Despite all cries of poor pay among Ugandan journalists, I see a deliberate attempt by some unscrupulous journalists to tarnish the image of this honorable profession. These quack journalists extort money from the public with threats of blackmail. For example,

on March 27 2008, Charles Etukuri, a former reporter of The Independent (fired on allegations of blackmail) newspaper connived with Ugandan state security operatives in an attempt to arrest an army deserter who had come to give an interview to the newspaper. The interview from this Ugandan army deserter currently on the run detailed how the government forces committed human rights atrocities in a civil war that has lasted more than 20 years in northern Uganda. In the interview, the soldier claimed that government forces, disguising themselves as Lords Resistance Army rebels mutilated people’s limbs and killed innocent civilians. On the day of the planned arrest, Etukuri, who also worked for both Daily Monitor and New Vision offered to be a contact person at the newspaper where he was monitoring the movements of the source who had come to give an interview. Luckily, the security operatives instead arrested a private guard keeping the newspaper’s main gate because they did not know the wanted suspect³⁹. Security agents like Etukuri pose a big threat to the lives of journalists particularly those investigating corruption and other forms of criminal activities.

Etyang says that there were several ways some people would try to intimidate journalists in an indirect manner. For instance, he says people would call and tell him that ‘I have a family; you are just spoiling my name in newspapers.’ He says that sources would try to tell you that whatever you have heard is not true. He notes that because the President wanted people to be sacked over the Global Fund issue, those involved were under pressure and they would sometimes also put pressure on journalists to compromise on stories although there was nothing journalists could do to help them because all media houses were represented.

Kakande has categorized threats of reporting on corruption depending on who is involved. He says that corruption stories that involve private business people are a more threat to the lives of journalists compared to corruption stories within government.

Reporters who write about business are faced with bigger threats because they are writing about deals of money, big financial deals. If your story of three or four

39 Failed CMI swoop at Independent offices

http://www.independent.co.ug/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=317&Itemid=2327

paragraphs is going to destroy a man’s deal he may even bump you off because it is a do or die. Corruption stories that involve government may not be serious but corruption stories that involve private individuals are the ones which are more dangerous. At times we do not even give by-lines for those kinds of articles to safeguard the identity reporters.

Having heard from interviewees we shall now turn the attention to content analysis to find out what else was discovered in regard to reporting corruption.