By Mulengera Reporters
A few days ago, eminent Ugandan broadcasting journalist Solomon Sserwanja appeared on BBC’s Focus on Africa program to discuss the impact of the Trump Administration’s decision to defund Voice of America (VoA), which the US government started to promote American values and counter communism during the cold war period.
Sserwanja gave his views about this decision to diminish funding to VoA and also reflected on other broader challenges constraining the vibrant and sustainable engagement in the journalism practice not only in Uganda but globally.
He made reference to challenges like the diminishing availability of advertising revenues and also the growing influence of social media which has virtually made it possible for every global citizen to become a journalist in their own way.
He also made reference to the recent violence Ugandan journalists faced while covering the Kawempe by-elections campaigns whose perpetrators Uganda’s CDF Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba had days earlier commented about in very complementary terms. Basing on that, Sserwajja predicted even harder times for Ugandan media practitioners as the country counts down to the 2026 general elections.
This is something we, at Mulengera News, reported about on this very platform. Our story had a headline which portrayed Mr. Sserwanja to have personally targeted Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba while declaring him enemy of the country’s media fraternity.
It’s this spinning that caused Sserwanja to be misunderstood to have personally targeted Gen MK, which he never did. It was never his objective nor intention to target the person of Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba.
That notwithstanding, the story went viral via online platforms and in the process causing our brother Solomon Sserwanja to be misunderstood, harangued and bashed by Gen MK’s army on social media. We take this opportunity to register our regret for the misunderstanding that was created.
We equally regret the inconvenience Mr. Sserwanja has endured as a result of our inadvertent reporting. Personally, he maintains that he never set out to target the person of Gen MK and, as the authors of the original story from the BBC program, we hereby register our regret and apology for having made him (Mr. Solomon Sserwanja) misunderstood. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
