I’m proud to be part of MPL

I joined Monitor Publications in 2002 as an intern and a second-year student at Makerere University.

Upon completion, I was offered a full-time placement with a relatively humbling salary at the time.

Both my parents worked at the defunct publication The weekly Topic whose office I used to frequent during the holidays. 

Upon enrollment, I was sent to Mr David Mukwaya to help me settle in and he was familiar as well having worked at the Sapoba house with The Weekly Topic.

In short, my life started in media and still runs with the same rhythm.

I’m privileged to be one of the longest-serving employees at Monitor Publications having worked closely with different managing directors starting with Mr Phillip Wafula, Mr Conrad Nkuutu, Mr Tom Mshindi, Mr Alex Asiimwe, Mr Gitahi Githinji, Mr Stephen Gitagama and now Mr Tony Glencross.

I’m so proud to have served the newsroom in the administrative capacity through all the executive editors, managing editors, editors, sub-editors, and reporters this newspaper has had over the years.

It’s been such an honour and a great learning experience of daily interfacing with such amazing brains that labour to bring truth every day. Daily, being in a newsroom is like attending class. There is always something new that will cause you to scratch your head and make a bold and immediate decision. 

It is an environment that keeps you on heels as it is a result-driven environment with so much pressure from both your bosses and the rest of the staff.

Over the years, I have witnessed how Daily Monitor newsroom has tapped into and attracted young talent, but most importantly, seeing this talent being nurtured well.

It is amazing how many prominent persons in Uganda have gone through the Daily Monitor newsroom.

In a nutshell, what I can say is that the success of any newsroom must be built on a culture and a common agenda known and practiced by all, and ours has always been bold, independent, truthful, balanced and fair.

This has stood the storm for years.The evolving newsroom trends have kept the newsroom a good working place.

Challenges

Technologies over time keep advancing and yet to run a modern newsroom one has to keep tabs on these tech trends which come at a cost.

I have to lobby for some increments on the operationalisation funds and have been strained to try to make very limited budgets work and not affect the output.

The most challenging experience in my entire carrier has been the Covid-19 outbreak. It was not foreseen and fore planned. I was learning on the job but we survived the storm with heads-over- the water.