{UAH} Kayihura should leave matters of journalism to journalists

Kayihura should leave matters of journalism to journalists

Written by LYNN NAJJEMBA

Last Updated: 21 October 2015

Several years back, I had an unfriendly encounter with an astute legislator of the 8th Parliament.

This 'honorable man' had just been removed from the chair of a little-known opposition political party he helped form. Members accused him of making off with funds secured from donors to build the party.

They wrote on a headed paper and appended their signatures indicating they no longer had trust in the MP's leadership. The letter reached my desk and, upon reading it, I found it newsworthy. I assigned a reporter to make a call to the MP and get his side of the story. In an angry tone, the 'honorable' MP simply told my journalist to "drop that story", before threatening to "sue your radio station if you go ahead to air that malicious story".

Well, I thought the MP had just missed an opportunity to clear his name. I went ahead to air the story. As expected, the MP was incensed that we had failed to do as instructed. He immediately stormed our newsroom, demanding to meet not just the news editor, but the general manager. His point: how could we act so unprofessionally by airing "ekiro kitwala omunaku'' or an anonymous letter?

In my little response, I asked him why he, a lawyer, thought he knew the business of journalism, to an extent of deciding how we presented news stories. I asked whether he had ever seen or heard me complain about how he handled his business as a lawyer. By the time he left the newsroom, the legislator had been cut to appropriate size. 

In another incident, a senior army officer called to tell me how I had acted unprofessionally by according more airplay to a story based on a statement made by Nathan Nandala-Mafabi, the then leader of opposition in parliament.

Mafabi had earlier spoken in parliament in defense of two opposition figures over the killing police officer John Michael Ariong, during a demonstration in downtown Kampala. In his view, I had ignored the Internal Affairs minister who had presented the government statement on the incident.

I wondered why the army officer did not call when the minister's voice enjoyed airplay in all our earlier bulletins that afternoon. I jokingly reminded him that he had studied military science while I studied journalism, and we simply laughed it off.

The remarks by police chief Kale Kayihura, telling journalists what to cover and how they should cover it got me reminiscing about these two and other experiences in my newsroom career. Incidentally, the police chief and the 'honorable' legislator belong to one of the most revered professions. We often refer to them as 'learned fellows'. To think that they can assume rights over how another profession is practiced is the greatest show of disrespect.

We all have witnessed the unprofessional manner in which Gen Kayihura's force handles unarmed civilians and journalists. They have shamelessly pounced on them and gone ahead to defend their actions, more so in media spaces! The journalism fraternity and human rights activists have simply condemned the police's actions and used legal means to challenge them.

Never have they attempted to teach the police chief and his other subordinates how policing is done. Why does Kayihura think he knows all about journalism and, therefore, what makes news?

General Kayihura and the legislator I encountered are not without company. Some time back, parliament, through the office of the speaker, decided to expel a group of journalists that had been covering that bit for between five and 10 years. The matter became controversial as sections questioned where Rebecca Kadaga derived the mandate to decide for a media house how assignments should be done.

The big question is: how would Kadaga or Kayihura react if they were lectured on how to perform their respective duties?
Whether you are a lawyer, medical doctor, soldier, an engineer or accountant, we take it that you are a master in your field and nobody can purport to know it better than you, especially if you did not go through the same training.

To borrow the words of famous American journalist and author Hunter S Thompson: "We cannot expect people to have respect for law and order until we teach respect to those we have entrusted to enforce those laws".

And just like Adolf Hitler once said: "And I can fight only for something that I love, love only what I respect and respect only what I at least know".

The author is a journalist.

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