By Mulengera Reporters
PLU big man and communications chief Andrew Mwenda says that the NMG-Uganda media outlets will be reopened very soon but the company will have to comply with several conditions imposed by the CDF Gen MK acting for & on behalf of the Ugandan state.
Mwenda, a Daily Monitor product who brokered and was part of the Wednesday de-escalation meeting at the SFC headquarters in Entebbe, says that a fire-breathing Gen MK made it clear to the company owners that he personally was very uncomfortable having a media house that viciously fights the government of Uganda as if they have been hired to serve as mercenaries.
He said there had been too much bias in the way NTV and Daily Monitor report their news, which creates an impression that they have chosen to become opponents of the government as opposed to doing professional news reporting.
That especially NTV’s provocative reporting had made Gen MK conclude that NMG Uganda isn’t being ran by professionals. Mwenda says that Gen MK unequivocally demanded for assurances that the company owners would fire many of the current reporters and editors so that the recruitment of more professional reporters and editors becomes condition precedent for the reopening of the NMG media group operations in Uganda. That there must be a team ready to do journalism, and not activism.
Some people in the MK universe have talked of a list being generated and presented to the NMG overall owners enumerating names of reporters and editors who should be fired as part of the reopening deal, which the owners from Tanzania want to be urgently concluded in order to be able to resume making money.
Mwenda says that the owners were asked to advise political activists who have been hiding under journalism to promote anti-government sentiments to hang their boots, leave the newsroom and go to run for political office.
It’s already being speculated that NUP-affiliated staffers like Solomon Kaweesi of the NTV Akawungeezi fame will need divine intervention to keep their jobs at the Serena-based NTV if the owners are to bend a knee to meet Gen MK’s appeasement requirements, to realign the way the TV channel has been approaching news reporting.(For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
