On several occasions Daily monitor, a renowned national Newspaper has been on spot for publishing critical analytical stories against the government of Uganda and its officials; but progressively, the bias and activism style of reporting within the publications of the paper keeps growing. God knows what agenda the senior paper has at table.
The choice with which the paper decided to handle the speech of the Chief Justice at Gen. Lokech’s burial is not only a sign of unprofessional ism but the art of using Journalism ethics to intentionally harm a person or institution. And as the Public, where are we left? You see, Journalism Ethics demand that when you damage, you publish an apology and correct the errors. The gap in this ethic is that; the damage is already caused. And this is how my senior colleagues at Daily Monitor take advantage.
Recently, in an opinion that was published in Sunday Monitor on 29th August by Mercella Karekye, she outlines several reasons why there is need to be responsible with Freedom of Speech. It looks however as though the editors at monitor will publish anything so long as it tarnishes government or her official. “Free Speech should not incite animosity, violate the principles of human rights or dishonestly hurt someone’s character” Marcella wrote.
To bring my readers to speed, Saturday Monitor of 28th August 2021, published a speech that the chief Justice gave at the send-off of Gen. Lokech with intentional falsehoods and misinformation. Now, people that have training in journalism know that speeches are one of the easiest things to report about, but because of the biased nature of these guys, they want to add soup to everything they report. Their cover is “public interest” but often times end up misinforming the public and breeding hate and fury against the people and institutions they write about.
So as ethics demand them to do, they took to their web site and admitted to having published falsehoods and inaccuracies in the Chief Justices speech and republished a verbatim of his speech. Now, I and you know that so many other stories have been misrepresented and published over time. Just this time it was the Chief Justice that was a victim. The question is, how many other people are in a position that when they are misrepresented, Monitor will accord them respect and correct the mistake.
With due respect, Some Journalists have lost their way and now fall into the activism category. Activism has an agenda and is biased towards a certain goal. With continuous seditious and falsehood stories published at this paper, a sober mind might open up to think that there is a bigger agenda behind the keyboards and Editors at Namuwongo, Industrial area 8th Street because some mistakes are not easy to make.
The writer is an online Political content analyst and student of Area Studies
