Monitoring Media Coverage of The 2016 Elections/Final Report

MONITORING MEDIA COVERAGE
OF THE 2016 ELECTIONS

FINAL REPORT
JUNE 2016
MONITORING MEDIA COVERAGE

OF THE 2016 ELECTIONS
FINAL REPORT
JUNE 2016
Published by
African Centre for Media Excellence
Plot 124 Nanjala Road (Bunga-Soya), off Ggaba Road
P. O Box 11283 Kampala, Uganda
Tel: +256393202351
info@acme.org
www.acme-ug.org
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Twitter: @ACME_Uganda
CopyrightACME 2016
Layout and Design
Harriet Anena
hanena@acme-ug.org
Cover Photo
Foreign Correspondents Association of Uganda
Final Report/June 2016
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This report is published with support from the Democratic Governance
Facility (DGF), which funded the African Centre for Media Excellences
project on monitoring media coverage of the 2016 elections. We are
grateful for the partnership with DGF.
Several individuals contributed to the final report and we single out a

few. Project Manager Mohles Kalule Segululigamba, technical advisor
George Lugalambi, statisticians Yusuf Mulumba and Brian Ssenabulya,
and coders Solomon James Butandwa, Emmanuel Mulondo, Jackie
Tumwebaze, Brenda Karungi and Hussein Bogere.
We also recognise the contribution of ACME staff Peter G. Mwesige,
Rachel Mugarura-Mutana, and Harriet Anena, and ACME board member
Daniel K. Kalinaki.
ACME would also like to thank the panel of advisors that reviewed the
findings every month before they were shared with the public. Panel
members are David Ouma Balikowa, Charlotte Kawesa Ntulume, William
Tayeebwa, Patricia Litho and Joseph Ssemakula.
ACME further thanks all the coders who tirelessly entered data and the
research assistants who recorded broadcast content throughout the life
of the project.
ACME Monitoring Media Coverage of the 2016 Elections
TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.....................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................7
The Media and Elections...............................................................................................9
Monitoring Media Coverage......................................................................................10
Media Coverage of Previous Elections..................................................................11
Monitoring/Research Questions.............................................................................13
METHODOLOGY..............................................................................................15
Scope of the Monitoring...........................................................................................15
Sample and Sampling Methods...............................................................................15
Methods of Data Collection.....................................................................................19
THE MEDIA ENVIRONMENT........................................................................22
Legal Framework...........................................................................................................23
Media Ownership and Diversity...............................................................................25
New Media........................................................................................................................27
Standards and Quality of Reporting......................................................................30
Experience and Institutional Memory.................................................................31
Freedom to Report......................................................................................................31
QUANTITATIVE RESULTS..............................................................................34
Volume of Election Stories........................................................................................34
Space and Time Allocated to Election Coverage...............................................36
Type of Election.............................................................................................................38
Most Covered Presidential Candidate..................................................................40
A Special Look at the Public Broadcaster..........................................................43
Pictures of Presidential Candidates......................................................................45
Front-Page News Coverage of Presidential Candidates..............................48
Most Covered Topic......................................................................................................51

Tone of Coverage..........................................................................................................53
Issues vs. Personalities................................................................................................55
Reporting Approach....................................................................................................56
Background and Context.........................................................................................60
Interrogation of Candidate Claims and Promises.........................................63
Sourcing: Numbers.......................................................................................................66
Sourcing: Gender............................................................................................................67
Sourcing: Occupation...................................................................................................68
USE OF TWITTER BY THE MAIN CANDIDATES......................................71
Followers.............................................................................................................71
Following.............................................................................................................73
Tweets...............................................................................................................74
Interactions.............................................................................................................76
ELECTION DAY AND POST-ELECTION COVERAGE..................................81
Government Moves Against Social Media..........................................................81
Media Legitimise Official Results........................................................................82

Space and Time Dedicated to Elections..............................................................87
Most Covered Candidate............................................................................................89
Electoral Administration Issues..............................................................................90
Most Covered Topic......................................................................................................91
Performance on Selected Measures of Quality..................................................94
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS........................................................96
Conclusion.........................................................................................................96
Recommendations.....................................................................................................101
APPENDIX......................................................................................................104
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Key dates and activities of the 2016 general elections
DATE
ACTIVITY
3-4 November 2015
Nomination day for presidential candidates
9 November 2015
2-3 December 2015
23 December 2015
16 February 2016
18 February 2016
1 September 2015
30 March 2016
Start of presidential campaigns
Nomination of Members of Parliament
Start of campaigns for Members of Parliament
End of campaigns for both presidential and parliamentary

candidates
Election Day
Start of ACME monitoring of media coverage of elections

End of ACME monitoring of media coverage of elections
This report contains cumulative findings of a project the African Centre

for Media Excellence (ACME) ran between 2015 and 2016 titled,
Monitoring Media Coverage of the 2016 Elections. This was a specialised
study under the Citizens Election Observers Network-Uganda (CEON-U),
a wider local civil society initiative to observe the electoral process to
deter and expose irregularities. ACME was a member of CEON-U.
The project, which started in July 2015, analysed coverage of the

presidential and parliamentary campaigns from September 2015,
Election Day on 18 February 2016 to the post-election period ending May
2016. The purpose was to highlight good practice and where appropriate
point out gaps so that they are addressed in good time as the electoral
process unfolded. The goal of the monitoring project was to contribute
to accurate, fair, impartial and balanced coverage of the 2016 elections.
In particular, ACME monitored, documented, and shared trends in media
coverage with the hope that this would not only influence journalists,
but also empower civil society and the public to demand adherence to
acceptable journalism standards in the coverage of elections. Unlike in
previous instances where media monitoring reports were published
after the elections, the innovation with this project was that ACME issued
monthly reports that were then discussed with stakeholders ranging from
senior media managers to political party representatives. We looked
at content in a number of newspapers, on the micro-blogging platform
Twitter, and on several radio and TV stations. Findings in the ACME
monthly reports were cited by both sides in the petition challenging the
outcome of the presidential election in the Supreme Court.
The results show that although the media (especially newspapers and
television) paid a good deal of attention to the campaigns and actual voting
and produced an impressive volume of stories, in general the coverage
fell short on several measures of quality. However, some media houses
improved their performance as the electioneering progressed.
The major media houses introduced new innovations to help citizens

make sense of the campaigns. For instance, the New Vision introduced
Todays Agenda Peoples Manifesto to compare what candidates were
saying with what voters considered the most urgent public problems that
required attention. Daily Monitor introduced two fact-checking features,
Fact-Checker and Truthometre, to test the veracity of the presidential
candidates claims and promises. The TV stations devoted substantial
air time and human resources to covering the elections, with reporters
assigned to follow candidates on the campaign trail across the country
and sometimes provide live coverage.
The results also show that, in a departure from tradition, newspapers and
television increasingly relied on ordinary people as sources of campaign
news and information.
These positive aspects of election coverage were, however, often

overshadowed by a bias toward President Yoweri Museveni, the
dominance of male sources, the predominance of the conventional
reporting approach (he said-she said), single sourcing, as well as a dearth
of investigation, explanation and analysis.
2
The results show that Mr Museveni was covered the most in newspapers,
on radio, and on television. Stories on the incumbent commanded 39%
of newspaper space devoted to presidential candidates, with coverage

of Go Forwards Amama Mbabazi taking second place at 29% and
stories on Forum for Democratic Changes Kizza Besigye getting 21%.
Similarly, television spent 45% of its time dedicated to the re-election
campaign of Mr Museveni compared to key challengers Besigyes 22%
and Mbabazis 19%. The same pattern was repeated on radio, with Mr
Museveni taking 41% of the time dedicated to presidential campaign
news and information compared to Mr Mbabazis 24% and Dr Besigyes
23%.
The five minor candidates received predictably negligible coverage,
although attention to them increased slightly after the first presidential
debate in January, which had provided them with a rare opportunity of
being thrust on the same national stage with the major candidates.
Although Mr Mbabazi, with 32%, had a slight edge over Mr Museveni
(30%) in overall newspaper front-page coverage, the president
dominated when it mattered most in the two months leading up to
voting day on 18 February. The reasons for this were not immediately
clear but regular press conferences by the incumbent as well as
aggressive efforts by his publicity teams to get him prominent coverage,
contributed to this out-turn.
The president also easily won the battle over photography, with his
campaign pictures taking 39% of the space in newspapers against Mr
Mbabazis 23% and Dr Besigyes 22%. The same pattern was seen when
it came to the number of candidate pictures on the front pages.
The conventional reporting approach, in which journalists usually

report events with no attempt to analyse or interpret, dominated the
coverage of the campaigns across all media types. Enterprise and
investigation were generally limited, taking up just about 20% of
newspaper coverage, 13% of radio, and 10% of television.
Coverage of both the presidential and parliamentary elections across
all mainstream media platforms also contained far more single-sourced
stories than the professionally preferred multiple-sourced ones. This

problem was far more pronounced on radio where 75% of stories on the
stations monitored, contained single sources.
Although there was a slight improvement as Election Day approached,
the media generally relied heavily on male sources. At no point did the
percentage of male sources drop below 80% in newspapers, on radio,
and on television.
The results also show that journalists often did not question the claims
and promises made by candidates. This problem was particularly
pronounced on television, where only 22% of the stories interrogated
candidate claims or promises. Newspapers did slightly better with 38%,
but overall media could have done better in order to give citizens the
information they needed to make informed electoral choices.
In terms of topics covered, the media paid more attention to

politics, especially the gamesmanship around the political and electoral
processes, than to issues that ordinary Ugandans cite as most important.
Various polls before and during the campaign season found that
ordinary Ugandans are concerned about corruption, jobs, and service
delivery.
The results further show that radio, which is the source of news and
political information for most Ugandans, consistently lagged behind
newspapers and television in terms of both quantity and quality of
election news.
However, radio had a better balance of attention between the

presidential and parliamentary campaigns. Newspapers and television
paid overwhelmingly more attention to the presidential contest.
Throughout the electioneering season, Uganda Broadcasting Corporation

(UBC), which is required by law to give equitable coverage to all
candidates, paid disproportionate attention to President Musevenis
campaign. UBC TV gave the incumbent 73% of its entire news and
commentary airtime on elections, with the next candidate, Mr Mbabazi,

receiving only 12% of the coverage. Dr Besigye, the eventual runner-up
in the election, received only 4.5% of UBC coverage. The privately
owned stations did better, with WBS TV giving 49% of its airtime to Mr
Museveni, NBS 41%, and NTV 30%.
Many of the weaknesses in media coverage were blamed on self-censorship,
intimidation and pressure from ruling party and government officials,
ownership influences, as well as low human and financial resources at
most media houses.
These challenges undermined the medias potential to provide information

that could help citizens make informed choices on Election Day.
ACME also monitored the presidential candidates presence on

Twitter to establish the extent to which they used alternative media
platforms to listen to and respond to queries, demands and debates
from the electorate. The three presidential candidates monitored
Mr Museveni, Dr Besigye and Mr Mbabazi used Twitter in the same
way that they use traditional media platforms: as a space to spread
information, but not as a platform of engagement. As a result, there were
numerous lost opportunities to engage their online followers and their
networks in key policy proposals and to distinguish themselves from
their rivals in the race.
The report concludes that the weaknesses in coverage are a result of
several factors revolving around professional and ethical challenges,
logistical and resource constraints, as well as limits on the exercise of
the right to free expression and media freedom.
The report contains several recommendations geared towards reform
of media regulation, securing equitable access to public media through
a credible and acceptable mechanism, and transforming the Uganda
Broadcasting Corporation into a public broadcaster that is accountable
to the public. It also recommends more investment by media houses in
election coverage, a more vigorous promotion of the Guidelines for Media
Coverage of Elections, and the need to educate police as well as the public
on the role of the media in elections.
This report is divided into seven chapters. Chapter One is the introduction.
Chapter Two provides a detailed look at the methodology and approach
employed. Chapter Three explores the environment within which media
in Uganda operated during the project period. Chapter Four provides
detailed results from the quantitative content analysis of media coverage
from September 2015 to February 2016. Chapter Five looks at how
the major candidates used Twitter to campaign. Chapter Six is about
Election Day and post-election coverage while the final chapter offers
conclusions and recommendations.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
African Centre for Media Excellence (ACME) monitored media coverage
of the 2016 elections from September 2015 to May 2016 when the
president-elect was sworn in. This specialised effort is part of the
monitoring work of the Citizens Election Observers Network-Uganda
(CEON-U), also funded by DGF. CEON-U comprises 18 civil society
organisations led by the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative. The
overall objective of CEON-U was to enhance the integrity of the election
process through deterring and exposing irregularities. CEON-Us specific
objectives were:
1. To regularly and objectively document and expose issues related to
or affecting the integrity of the electoral process.
2. To raise awareness and engage key stakeholders on electoral

observation findings and recommendations.
3. To enhance public confidence and promote the participation of

women and men in the electoral process.
4. To mitigate the potential for election-related violence.
As the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe has rightly

noted, given the key role the media play in elections, any observation
effort should pay significant attention to the activities of the media and
their coverage of elections.1 Media monitoring can document whether
coverage contributed to a free and fair election or subverted the process.
But it can also be a process of constructive intervention whereby gaps
in, and concerns about, coverage are addressed before the elections.
ACME intended this project to do both.
1 OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (2012). Handbook on Media Monitoring for Election
Observation Missions. Warsaw, Poland.
The purpose of ACMEs media monitoring project, therefore, was to

assess the nature of media coverage of the 2016 elections, promote
professionalism in media coverage, and document whether media
coverage contributed to a free and fair election or subverted the electoral
process. The goal was to contribute to accurate, fair, impartial and
balanced coverage of the 2016 elections. The specific objectives were:
1. To monitor, document and share trends in media coverage of the
2016 general elections.
2. To monitor media compliance with election reporting guidelines and

regulations.
3. To influence journalists, editors and media owners to provide

information that is more accurate, impartial and fair.
4. To empower civil society and the public to demand adherence to
professional standards in media coverage of elections.
Unlike in previous instances where media monitoring reports were

published after the elections, ACME issued monthly reports that were
then discussed with stakeholders ranging from senior media managers
to political party representatives. Several media houses used the
findings to reflect on their coverage, and some, such as Etop newspaper
moved from zero use of female sources in October and November,
to being second best performer by the end of the project. Dan Outa,
the newspapers editor, noted: These reports greatly influenced our
reporting positively by pointing out the areas of weakness, areas that
the media had been taking for granted. For example, little attention had
been paid to gender-sensitive reporting but after it was highlighted in
the reports, we at Etop were able to improve tremendously. The same
with multiple sourcing, issue-based and analytical reporting, among
other areas. It was an eye opener.
8
The media and elections

Fully functioning democracies are associated with periodic free and fair
elections where all contesting political viewpoints are fairly and equitably
communicated through the media so that voters have an opportunity to
make informed choices/decisions as to who their leaders will be. Media
coverage of elections from the process of making electoral laws, the
campaigns, voting, through to the post-polling period is critical in any
democracy. When the media get it right, voters are able to understand the
issues and choices before them by hearing all the different viewpoints.
Voters are also given an opportunity to discuss the issues and express
themselves.
For an electoral process to qualify as free and fair, not only must the
election unfold in adequate political and administrative conditions,
but citizens must also have access to sufficient information about the
parties, candidates and voting procedures to ensure that they will make
an enlightened and valid choice. Elections will only be free if all players
candidates, political parties, citizens, civil society and, of course,
journalists can express themselves on all matters of public concern.
The media play five essential roles in the electoral process:
Provision of information to enable voters make informed decisions.

Provision of platforms for debate through allowing exchange of
opinions amongst the different contending groups and citizens.
Acting as a watchdog for fairness during election campaigning and
polling.
Educating the public about electoral processes.
Providing voice to the voters.2
2 Marie-Soleil Frre (2010). The Media and Elections in Post-Conflict Central African Countries. Brussels: University
of Brussels.
Monitoring media coverage

Media monitoring is anchored in the ethical and professional standards
that are expected to help the media perform the essential roles already
identified. The standards include, but are not limited to, the following:
Accuracy in reporting.
Dedication of space and time to elections.
Distinguishing between news and opinion.

Use of, and reliance on, multiple sources.
Corrections and the right of reply.
Focus on a diversity of issues.
Equitable coverage of the candidates.

Balance and fairness in reporting.
A good mix of both episodic and issue-based coverage.

Interrogation of candidate promises and claims.
Provision of adequate background and context.
Balance of attention paid to candidates/political parties and the

voters.
Rejection of bribery of journalists.
Independence of media houses and journalists.
10
Most of these standards were captured in a publication titled

Guidelines for Media Coverage of Elections in Uganda against which
the media monitoring was benchmarked. Based on international
standards and best practices but sensitive to the Ugandan context, these
guidelines, which were published by ACME, highlight the responsibilities
and obligations of the media regarding election coverage and reporting.
They were developed through a participatory process, and most media

houses signed on to them. In August and September 2015, ACME engaged
media owners and managers in order to generate consensus on the use
of the guidelines as the yardstick for media coverage and monitoring.
Media coverage of previous elections
Previous media monitoring reports on Ugandan elections indicate that

the media often fall short of the roles and standards already outlined. In
particular, the following gaps have been observed in media coverage of
elections in Uganda.3
Disproportionate coverage of the incumbent (president) and ruling
party on state/public media
Although both the Constitution and electoral laws provide for equal
access to candidates on state or public media, in all previous elections,
the latter have been accused of paying disproportionate attention to
the activities of the incumbent and ruling party at the expense of the
challengers and the opposition. This practice denies the viewing/
listening public access to adequate information against which to judge
all sides in the election.
Denial of access to state/public media by opposition candidates
State/public media have also been accused of denying access to opposition

candidates in complete violation of the Constitution and electoral laws.
This was one of the grounds cited by opposition leader Kizza Besigye
in his unsuccessful petition against the re-election of President Yoweri
Museveni in 2006. During the campaigns ahead of the 2011 elections,
Dr Besigye, the main challenger, was again denied access to public/state
broadcaster UBC and the campaign advertisements he had paid for were
never broadcast.
Again, this practice denies the viewing public access to adequate
3 See e.g. Memonet (2011). Uganda media coverage of the 2011 elections: final media
monitoring report. Kampala.
11
information against which to judge all sides in an electoral contest.
Predominance of episodic reporting and dearth of issue-based coverage

The media have also been accused of focusing more on the drama and
daily routine of the election campaign at the expense of the issues. They
also tend to report the election as an event rather than a process. This
practice denies the public not only information but also the context
within which to judge candidates, parties, electoral authorities, as well
as the overall process.
No serious interrogation of candidate claims and promises
The lack of rigorous verification and interrogation of the claims and

promises made by candidates similarly denies the public access to
complete information against which to judge those offering themselves
for public office.
Disproportionate attention to candidates and political parties at the
expense of voters
It has been said that voters are the most critical players in elections.
Unfortunately, it has been pointed out that media coverage in
Uganda, as in many other countries, tends to pay far more attention to
the candidates and their parties than to the voters. Lost in this kind of
reporting, for instance, are the issues that matter most to the voters as
well as their own evolving evaluation of the electoral process.
Attempts by political actors, especially those in government, to influence
visuals in newspapers and on television
12
The Ugandan media have also been accused of succumbing to pressure

from political operatives to overplay visuals of certain candidates.
In the last two elections, for instance, New Vision was accused of
overplaying, under pressure, pictures that showed huge crowds
at President Musevenis rallies and downplaying those of his main
opponent, even where Dr Besigye had attracted similar or higher
numbers of people. This practice denies voters the complete picture

of the relative popularity of candidates judged by attendance of their
rallies.
Lack of fairness and balance
Like any other genre, covering elections requires journalists to report on

all candidates and parties in a fair and balanced manner. For instance,
the media are supposed to give candidates the right to reply to attacks
from their opponents. They are also supposed to give candidates and
parties similar opportunity to respond to issues. This has not always
been the case in the coverage of elections in Uganda.
Other concerns and gaps in media coverage of elections have revolved
around the following:
Bias.
Inaccurate reporting.
Bribery of journalists.
Self-censorship.
Poor portrayal of women candidates.
It is against this background that ACME sought to monitor

comprehensively media coverage of the 2016 elections.
Monitoring / Research questions
The following questions guided the monitoring of media coverage.
1. What is the operating environment for the media ahead of the

elections?
2. What topics do the media focus on in their coverage of the elections?
3. What type of reports do the media produce (news, commentary/

opinion, features/special reports, etc)?
13
4. What is the nature of the reporting (conventional, interpretative,

investigative)?
5. Who are the sources in media coverage (ordinary people, party

officials, candidates, regulators, civil society, diplomats, religious
leaders, central government officials, local leaders, police/security,
etc.)?
6. What is the number and gender of the sources?
7. Which political parties are focused on in media coverage?
8. Which presidential candidates are focused on in media coverage?

9. How much time or space is dedicated to each party?
10. How much time or space is dedicated to each presidential candidate?

11. What is the tone of coverage?
12. What is the frequency of personal attacks in media coverage?

13. Do media houses offer the right of reply?
14. How often do news stories interrogate candidate or party promises?

15. How often do news stories include background and context?
In the next chapter, we lay out the approach and methodology that we
employed to answer these questions.
CHAPTER TWO
14
METHODOLOGY
This chapter presents the scope of the monitoring exercise, the sample
and sampling methods, methods of data collection as well as the tools
that we used.
Scope of the monitoring
We monitored a purposive sample of print, electronic, and online media.

The monitoring focused on coverage related to the presidential and
parliamentary elections of 2016 during the pre- and post-electoral
periods, from 1 September 2015, to 12 May 2016. The election-related
content that was monitored across the media landscape was defined in
terms of, and broadly classified under three genres: news, current affairs,
and commentary.
Inevitably, however, there were variations in the emphasis and breadth

of the monitoring exercise because of the differences among, and unique
elements of, the media platforms from which the data were drawn.
In other words, whereas certain variables were applicable to all the
content of interest news, current affairs, and commentary some
were inapplicable to particular media platforms. For the electronic
media, for instance, the primary content of interest comprised news
bulletins and current affairs talk shows that did not, by the nature of TV
and radio content, bear the same characteristics as print media content.
Similarly, the unique features of social media messages necessitated a
different approach that recognised the specific characteristics of this
form of political discourse.
Sample and sampling methods
The sample of channels selected for monitoring represented print,

electronic, and social media platforms and was composed of nine
newspapers, five television channels, 33 radio stations, and Twitter. This
choice of channels constituted a purposive sample designed to capture
all facets of the election coverage that the electorate in its diversity is
15
exposed to.
Print media
All the major national and regional publications (eight newspapers and
one magazine) were included to ensure a balanced representation, to
the extent possible, of every major language group. There were five
English-language publications and one each in key regional languages
and language groupings: Luganda, Ateso, Luo, and Runyakitara. Five
of the eight newspapers in this sample (New Vision, Bukedde, Etop,
Rupiny and Orumuri) are published by the Vision Group, a listed
company whose ownership is split more or less equally between the
government and private shareholders. The nine print titles together
account for nearly all mainstream print media circulation in Uganda.
The Vision Group publications arguably control about three-quarters of
the national readership or market.
The titles that made up the newspaper sample, with their publication
cycles, are:
1. New Vision (daily; national)
2. Daily Monitor (daily; national)

3. The Observer (tri-weekly; national)
4. The Independent (weekly news magazine)
5. Red Pepper (daily; national)
6. Bukedde (daily; central)
7. Etop (weekly; eastern)
8. Rupiny (weekly; northern)
9. Orumuri (weekly; western)
16
Television
The five TV channels included in the sample collectively cover the whole
country. All but one broadcast primarily in English. Bukedde broadcasts
in Luganda and is one of the platforms owned by the Vision Group.
Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC) is the public broadcaster. The
rest of the stations are privately owned. The channels included in the TV
samples are:
1. Bukedde
2. NBS
3. NTV
4. UBC
5. WBS
Radio
The radio stations selected for monitoring collectively cover the entire
country and represent Ugandas seven major regions: Kampala, central,
eastern, western, south-western, northern, and North-Western/West
Nile. This sample constitutes about 13% of the 250 or so stations in
operation across the country. The selected radio stations generally
accommodate all audience profiles as defined by social class, language,
religion, ethnicity, and geography/geo-politics. Except UBC, the public
broadcaster, all the other channels are either private, faith-based, or
community radio stations. The stations that make up the radio sample
are presented on Page 18 by region.
17
Table 1: The radio stations monitored

REGION
MEDIA
FREQUENCY
Kampala (5)
Capital Radio
KFM
Top Radio
Simba FM
UBC Blue Channel
FM 91.3
FM 93.3
FM 89.6
FM 97.3
FM 98
Baba
Open Gate
Rock Mambo
Kioga Veritas
Voice of Teso
Signal FM
FM 87.7
FM 103.2
FM 106.8
FM 91.5
FM 88.4
FM 88.1
Central (5)
Eastern (6)
Western (5)
South-Western (2)
Northern (4)
18
Radio Sapientia
Voice of Africa
Central Broadcasting Services
Buddu
Spice FM
Kasese Guide
Voice of Toro
Bushenyi
Bunyoro Broadcasting Services
Radio West
Rukungiri FM
Voice of Kigezi
Mighty Fire
Dokolo FM
Mega FM
Rhino
North-Western/West Nile (6) Radio Amani

Nile
Voice of Life
Radio Paidha
Arua One
Radio Pacis
FM 94.8
FM 92.3
FM 89.2
FM 101.9
FM 89.9
FM 100.5
FM 101
FM 92.2
FM 98.2
FM 100.2
FM 96.7
FM 89.5
FM 91.5
FM 102.4
FM 102.1
FM 96.1
FM 89.1
FM 94.1
FM 100.9
FM 87.8
FM 88.7
FM 90.9
Social media
Twitter was preferred to other social media platforms on pragmatic
grounds. The objectives were to ascertain the extent to which the main
presidential candidates used Twitter as an alternative media form
during and after the campaign season as well as to assess candidates
use of Twitter to listen to and respond to queries, demands and debates
from the electorate online.
Methods of data collection
The monitoring mainly relied on quantitative content analysis, although

where appropriate and possible, informant interviews were conducted
to provide context for the findings. Monitoring studies were undertaken
and released every month beginning in October 2015.
Content analysis
Content analysis provided a detailed and multi-faceted picture of the

nature and extent of election coverage in the media as measured on
various journalistic and content dimensions of quantity and quality.
The universe of interest consisted of election-related articles that fell

under any three of the primary content genres: news, current affairs,
and commentary.
Stories were coded and analysed for the degree to which they reflect
various pre-determined characteristics of election coverage. Specifically,
stories were coded on a number of variables ranging from manifest
characteristics (size, format, prominence, sources, and location) to
the latent features of the reporting (tone, interrogation of candidate
promises, background and context).4
A standard coding scheme was employed. It outlined the categories

or aspects on which monitoring information was needed and how
that information was to be captured. Coders were instructed to select
4
The research (monitoring) questions outlined in the Introduction section will be the foundation of the media
content analysis, which will be based on a systematic coding scheme.
19
an appropriate digit known as a code that was entered on the coding

form, which was the primary data collection instrument.
Coders underwent training before they embarked on coding. A sample

of media content was coded under a pilot to ensure that the measures
and definitions were reliable before the full-scale coding started.
Standard inter-coder reliability tests were conducted to ensure that the
findings were dependable.
A detailed codebook contained definitions of all the content categories

that were to be monitored. Coding was done manually and electronically
by trained coders and the data entered directly into an MS Access
database where it was stored and retrieved for statistical analysis.
In short, the coding procedure involved a rigorous and methodical process of
identifying and analysing election-related stories.
Print media content
The census method of sampling was employed in selecting the newspaper

content included in the monitoring of print media coverage of the
presidential and parliamentary elections. This implies that all content
that fell within the universe of interest was tracked and analysed. For
news content, the story was the unit of analysis. Accordingly, each story
was treated as a unique record and the findings were primarily and
whenever applicable, presented in terms of how the stories played out
on the different measures of election coverage or variables of interest.
Similarly, for comment, the opinion article or letter to the editor was the
unit of analysis.
Radio and TV content
20
For radio news/current affairs, the monitoring focused on the two most
important daily news bulletins broadcast around the top of the hour
during the morning and evening prime listening times between 7 a.m.
9 a.m. and 7 p.m. 9 p.m.
For TV news/current affairs, the monitoring focused on the two most

important daily news bulletins broadcast at the top of the hour during
the morning and evening prime viewing times between 7 a.m. 9 a.m.
and 7 p.m. 10 p.m. The scheduling of these programmes generally
varied by TV station within those time segments.
With regard to radio and TV talk shows, a systematic random sampling

approach was used to select the shows to monitor for those stations that
run daily talk shows. According to this protocol, for example, the Monday
programme was monitored in the first monitoring week that began on
2 November 2015. Successive days of the week were monitored until
the final monitoring week that began on 22 February 2016. For talk
shows that ran on a weekly cycle, the main current affairs talk show was
identified and monitored.
Twitter
ACME received comprehensive analytics from the online monitoring

company, Social Bakers as well as internal Twitter analytics. Areas of
interest included number of followers, change in followers over time,
incoming and outgoing interactions, as well as total and frequency of
tweets.
Key Informant Interviews
Key informant interviews were conducted to make sense of the

environment under which journalists and media houses were
operating as well as provide insight into the patterns in coverage that
the results of the content analysis were revealing. For the latter aspect,
the interviews continued to be informed by the issues, observations,
and insights generated by the content analysis. The interviews provided
an opportunity to interrogate and illuminate the pertinent issues with
the perspectives of individualsjournalists, civil society activities,
political party workers, and regulators who were familiar with the
election-related issues under investigation.
21
CHAPTER THREE
THE MEDIA ENVIRONMENT

The media landscape in Uganda is a hybrid of vibrant and critical media
that often swim against the tide of overt and covert censorship, including
the use of commercial incentives and disincentives as well as the peculiar
nature of ownership, to undermine editorial independence or influence
tone and coverage. A stringent regime of regulations across print, radio
and television channels further continue to characterise the media
environment.
Additionally, online and social media are increasingly becoming a major
source of information and debate for middle class Ugandans and the
government is beginning to closely watch and intervene in the digital
space.
Radio remains the biggest source of information for most Ugandans (55%
of households receive information through radio, according to the 2014
census report)5 although newspapers are influential agenda-setters for
the public, political class, as well as other media.
Although Uganda has some of the most vibrant media in east and
southern Africa, in the last five years the country has been characterised
by Freedom House as partly free. In one of its more recent reports, the
international press freedom watchdog concluded that although the
countrys constitution provides for freedom of expression and press
freedom, several laws negate these guarantees, and the government
continues to crack down on critical journalists and media houses using
both subtle and blatant methods.6
5 http://www.ubos.org/onlinefiles/uploads/ubos/NPHC/2014%20National%20Census%20Main%20Report.
pdf
Uganda, Freedom of the Press 2012, Freedom House, http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2011/uganda
22
Legal framework
The Constitution of Uganda provides for the rights to freedom of expression
as well as access to information, although the enabling laws continued
to attract criticism for derogating from these constitutional guarantees.
The media in Uganda are governed mainly by the Press and Journalist
Act (Cap 105), the Uganda Broadcasting Corporation Act, 2005, and the
Uganda Communications Act, 2013, which merged the Electronic Media
Act (Cap 104) and the Uganda Communications Act, 1997.
These laws provide for statutory regulation and establish the Media
Council as the primary regulator of the print media but also aspects
of broadcast media, and the Uganda Communications Commission
as the regulator of electronic media and telecommunications. All
journalists are supposed to be licensed by the Media Council, which is
by law required to recognise only those enrolled under the National
Institute of Journalists of Uganda (NIJU). Journalists require university
degrees to become full members of NIJU. These regulations have not
been followed strictly in the last 15 years although they continue to
attract criticism from media freedom watchers, who also fault Ugandas
regulatory regime for not having the necessary independence from the
government.
The fourth Schedule of the Press and Journalist Act provides for a
professional code of ethics that lists nine commandments:
1. No journalist shall disseminate information or an allegation without
establishing its correctness or truth.
2. No journalist shall disclose the source of his or her information; he or she

shall only divulge the source in the event of an overriding consideration of
public interest and within the framework of the law of
Uganda.
3. No journalist shall solicit or accept bribes in an attempt to publish or
suppress the publication of a story.
23
4. A journalist shall not plagiarise the professional work of others or

expropriate works or results of research by scholars without acknowledging
their contribution and naming his or her sources of information.
5. A journalist shall obtain his or her information through the
skillful application of journalistic principles and shall never bribe or offer
inducements to his or her source.
6. No journalist shall deny any person with legitimate claim a right to
reply to a statement. Corrections and rejoinders are to be published in
appropriate form without delay and in a way that they will be noticed by
those who have received the original information.
7. A journalist shall at all times strive to separate his or her own opinions
from factual news. Where personal opinions are expressed, the public shall
be made to know.
8. A journalist shall take the necessary steps to correct any damaging
report he or she has made on any individual or organisation.
9. A journalist shall not originate or encourage the dissemination of
information designed to promote or which may have the effect of promoting
tribalism, racism or any other form of discrimination.
Schedule 4 of the Uganda Communications Act on the other hand
provides for minimum broadcasting standards. It states:
A broadcaster or video operator shall ensure that
(a) any programme which is broadcast
(i) is not contrary to public morality;
(ii) does not promote the culture of violence or ethnical prejudice among
the public, especially the children and the youth;
(iii) in the case of a news broadcast, is free from distortion of facts;
(iv) is not likely to create public insecurity or violence;
24
(v) is in compliance with the existing law;

(b) programmes that are broadcast are balanced to ensure harmony in
such programmes;
(c) adult-oriented programmes are appropriately scheduled;
(d) where a programme that is broadcast is in respect to a contender for
a public office, that each contender is given equal opportunity on such a
programme;
(e) where a broadcast relates to national security, the contents of the
broadcast are verified before broadcasting.
Ugandas electoral laws also have some specific provisions relating to
the media. For instance, Article 23 of the Presidential Elections Act,
2005, provides for equal treatment, freedom of expression and access
to information of candidates. Clause 1 of that article enjoins public
authorities and institutions to give equal treatment to all candidates
and their agents. Article 24 provides that All presidential candidates
shall be given equal treatment on the State owned media to present their
programmes to the people.
Media ownership and diversity
Ugandas media industry continues to be dominated by two

conglomerates with interests in radio, television, print and online
the majority state-owned Vision Group and Nation Media Group,
a Nairobi-based privately owned company. In addition to the two
market leaders, there are a number of smaller privately owned entities:
Red Pepper, a daily tabloid whose affiliates include Kamunye, Entatsi and
Hello!Uganda publications, and Juice FM; the tri-weekly The Observer;
and weekly news magazine The Independent.
According to the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) third
25
quarter report of 2015,7 there were 292 operational FM radio stations,

a jump from 253 in the second quarter of the same year. Media experts
say that the large and sudden jump was the function of licence owners
who had dormant stations reviving them to target election money that
was bound to come through adverts and paid-for talk shows and other
such programming. The same report says there were 33 operational TV
stations (28 analogue, 3 digital terrestrial, and 2 digital satellite). The
state-run UBC has the widest TV and radio reach, broadcasting in multiple
local languages as well as in English and Kiswahili across the country.
Its FM radio affiliates include the community station Mega FM, based
in Gulu, and the Kampala-based Magic FM, a sports and music outlet.
Although UBC was expected to have transformed into a public broadcaster,
it remains very much a state entity that is largely subservient to President
Museveni8 and the ruling party and rarely provides for views critical of
the government.
Concerns remained that many private stations were owned by
politicians in the NRM or business people who were close to the ruling
party. Although the regulator puts radio ownership by politicians at
about 15% , some media watchers contend that it could be well over
70% , especially in the countryside.9 Such ownership patterns have
raised concerns about media diversity, especially given that many radio
stations owned by politicians have been known to turn away members
of the opposition and other voices of dissent. For example, on 21 July
2015, Baba FM in Jinja was taken off air after 15 minutes of a scheduled
hour-long interview with presidential challenger Kizza Besigye. The station managers blamed a technical glitch; Dr Besigyes campaign said it
was sabotage. Within days the station, owned by a ruling party MP,10 had
7
See http://www.ucc.co.ug/files/downloads/Q3-Market%20Report%20%20for%20Third%20Quarter%20
-%20July-September%202015.pdf.
8 The bias shows more during election period. See http://observer.ug/news-headlines/42308-report-ubc-denies-opposition-airtime
9 Report of the International Mission on Freedom of Expression in Uganda, September 2010.

10 http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Radio-goes-off-air-15-minutes-into-Dr-Besigyes-talk-
26
show/-/688334/2803274/-/kcvksr/-/index.html
suspended the journalists involved in the talk show. There have been
similar occurrences over the years.11
Threats to diversity do not only emanate from ownership patterns.

In loud and quiet ways, the government uses the regulatory regime
to influence coverage. Broadcast regulator UCCs tactics have drawn
scrutiny. In November 2015, UCC directed a number of broadcast outlets
to stop hosting Mr Tamale Mirundi, otherwise their operating licences
would be cancelled.12 The regulator objected to the stations allowing Mr
Mirundi, a former Museveni media aide, to routinely insult on air various
prominent government officials. The stations promised to behave and
follow the law;13 and so the matter ended after a week.14 And a Human
Rights Watch report15 says the UCC executive director called an FM
station in Fort Portal and forbade it from carrying stories critical of the
wrangling Tooro royal family. Such tactics engender self-censorship.
Similarly, there are also fears that conglomeration could in future
undermine the media pluralism and diversity that democracy demands.
New media
On the new media side, a growing number of Ugandans are turning to

the Internet as a major source of information. By June 2015, according
to UCC, the number of Internet users in Uganda stood at 13 million,
representing 37% penetration. The number of users stood at 8.5 million
a year before.16 Freedom House has reported that this growth is partly
11 https://hrnjuganda.org/?p=1438
12 http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/UCC-blocks-Mirundi-from-TV--radio/-/688334/2980776/-/
d3idi7/-/index.html
13 http://www.researchictafrica.net/countries/uganda/Uganda_Communications_Act_2013.pdf
14 http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Mirundi-back-on-air--attacks-Mbabazi-Mao/-/688334/2988354/-/u2bd9j/-/index.html
15
https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/01/10/keep-people-uninformed/pre-election-threats-free-expression-and-association-uganda
16 http://www.ucc.co.ug/files/downloads/Annual%20Market%20Industry%20Report%202014-15-%20October%2019-2015.pdf
27
due to the proliferation of smart phones, especially as Ugandas mobile

phone usage has spiked dramatically from less than one million users
in 2001 to 22 million as at June 2015. The June 2014 number was 19
million.17 This has been accompanied by lower mobile phone tariffs and
cheaper bandwidth costs.
Social media platforms such as Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Instagram,

LinkedIn, WhatsApp are among the 15 most popular sites in Uganda.18
Facebook is the most used social platform in the country, and the
number of subscribers stood at 1.8 million19 (a 5% penetration rate)
in November 2015, a three-fold rise since 201220. Journalists are one
section of Ugandans increasingly embracing social media to enhance
their reporting, and this came to the fore in the election season. But
government actions continue to affect how much freedom Ugandans
have in using social media. It announced in 2013 that it was setting up
a social-media monitoring centre to track the spread of content that
potentially harms national security. In June 2015, the police arrested
and put on trial Mr Robert Shaka21, a USAID employee it suspected to
be Tom Voltaire Okwalinga22 or TVO23, an indefatigable yet anonymous
Facebook critic of President Museveni, his key political and family figures,
and his government. He was charged with promotion of sectarianism
under Section 41 of the Penal Code Act, and misuse of computers, in
contravention of Section 25 of the Computer Misuse Act.24 However,
while Mr Shaka (Maverick Blutaski on Facebook) was being held, the
17 http://www.ucc.co.ug/files/downloads/Annual%20Market%20Industry%20Report%202014-15-%20October%2019-2015.pdf.
18 http://www.contadorharrison.com/social-media-use-in-uganda/
19 http://www.internetworldstats.com/africa.htm
20 http://www.internetworldstats.com/africa.htm
21 http://www.observer.ug/news-headlines/38278-who-s-tom-voltaire-okwalinga-tvo
22 https://www.facebook.com/tom.okwalinga?fref=ts
23 https://www.facebook.com/Tvo-Uganda-654610647943658/?fref=ts
24 http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Lawyers-demand-release-of-social-media-critic-/-/688334/2747382/-/r3f7qaz/-/index.html
28
Tom Voltaire Okwalinga Facebook page stayed active, carrying posts

that mocked the government for allegedly holding the wrong person.
Mr Shakas case was pending in the courts at years end. Then in an
unprecedented move, UCC directed the shutdown of social media and
mobile money services ahead of the elections citing security concerns
raised by the Uganda Police. Despite widespread condemnation, the
blockade was repeated ahead of the President Musevenis swearing-in
ceremony on 12 May.
Although journalists have increasingly embraced social media to enhance
their reporting, the opportunities offered by the Internet and new
media are yet to be exploited fully. In particular, the many initiatives to
harness the public voice and hold the government accountable through
social media and digital platforms are often not amplified through the
mainstream media, especially radio, which remains the major source of
information for a majority of Ugandans.
Social media usage was a big deal during the election period, by journalists politicians and
the general public. Courtesy Photo.
29
Standards and quality of reporting

The major media houses in Uganda show some degree of
professionalism through the kind of content they produce. They are
often comprehensive, bold and independent in their reporting. This is
especially true for newspapers and some television stations.
Broadly, however, the quality of Ugandan journalism could improve.

Concerns persist over professionalism and ethical standards. Most
stories still contain little enterprise, depth, analysis and investigation.
Elementary mistakes, single-source stories, poor news judgement, and
glaring inaccuracies in the news coverage by many media outlets as well
as cases of brown envelope journalism, undermine the credibility of
media institutions.
In-depth reporting and investigation of public affairs such as

health care delivery, education, energy, human rights, land use,
environment, infrastructural development, corruption, and local
governance, is rare or inconsistent. Perhaps with the exception of the
output of the Uganda Radio Network programmes, radio news is very often
full of episodic event-based reporting that does not interrogate issues.
Radio stations continue to pay disproportionate attention to music and
entertainment-based programming over public affairs programming. The
quality of television news has improved with the growing competition
engendered more recently by the massive rebranding of NBS Television,
but in-depth reporting and investigation are still not common.
The Ugandan media also rely too much on politicians, government
officials and business executives in their reporting. The voices of civil
society and ordinary people are not often dominant in media coverage.25
Ugandan journalists cite poor pay, lack of knowledge/skills and pressure
25 Mwesige, P.G. (2006). The Media and Civil Society in Uganda: Exploring Relations and Possibilities.
Paper Presented at Breakfast Meeting for Media Owners Hosted by the Civil Society Capacity Building Programme. Kampala, November 15, 2006
30
not to publish as the biggest obstacles to their work.26 Pressure not to

publish comes from both the government and major advertisers. Lack
of resources and limited access to information are also cited as major
hindrances to investigative journalism and public affairs reporting. The
glorification of private profit at the expense of the public interest has
also been blamed for the average quality of Ugandan journalism.
Experience and institutional memory
The rate of occupational mobility in political reporting, and

Ugandan journalism generally, remains high. Many experienced
journalists have moved on to other fields such as marketing and public
relations for better pay and shorter hours. Commentators note that
such haemorrhage weakens institutional memory and diminishes
the intellectual capital and credibility of news organisations.27
It is telling that out of 127 journalists that the ACME research team
interviewed as key informants, 78% had less than 10 years of
experience in journalism and 51% had worked for five years or less in
the profession. In terms of political reporting experience, less than 10%
had covered more than three elections. The biggest number, 47%, had
covered only one election. The lack of experience easily undercuts the
ability of journalists to provide adequate context and nuance.
The dearth of respected and experienced journalists who have earned
credibility over the years and who are capable of interrogating claims
with authority cumulatively undermines the medias ability to effectively
set the agenda and contribute to ensuring that the electoral process is
free, fair, and represents the will of an informed citizenry.
Freedom to report
In the run up to the elections, local and international freedom of

26 Colmery, B. et al. (2009). There Will be Ink.
27 Mwesige, P.G & D.K. Kalinaki (2007). East Africa: 50 years of media, in E. Barratt & G. Berger (Eds.). 50
Years of Journalism: African media since Ghanas independence. (pp. 97-109). Johannesburg: African Editors Forum,
Highway Africa, and Media Foundation for West Africa.
31
expression watchdog groups reported that many Ugandan journalists

did not feel they were free to cover the elections. In a report titled Keep
the People Uninformed: Pre-Election Threats to Free Expression and
Association in Uganda, which was released in January 2016, Human
Rights Watch noted that journalists were facing increased threats as
the elections loomed. Among the threats cited in the report based
on interviews with more than 170 journalists, activists and other
informants were physical violence, threat and harassment, dismissal
or suspension for hosting opposition politicians, co-optation and
bribery, as well as self-censorship. The report said the threats were
especially pronounced in the countryside, adding that print journalists in
the capital Kampala enjoyed some relative freedom. Radio journalism
appears to face more scrutiny from government and ruling party officials
because of its reach in rural areas where there is limited access to
diverse sources of information, the rights body reported.
The report singled out the police, resident district commissioners,

internal security officials, as well as UCC as the main authors of the
threats and harassment of journalists in rural Uganda.
For its part, Human Rights Network for Journalists-Uganda condemned

the unnecessary and unwarranted interference with the work of the
media in general and journalists in particular by police, RDCs and
politicians majorly from the ruling party.28 The group said between
October 2015 and January 2016, it recorded 40 cases in which
journalists had been shot at, assaulted, their gadgets damaged,
detained and released without charge and blocked from accessing news
scenes.
32
The results of ACMEs informant interviews during the campaigns

and post-election period show that although a majority of journalists
reported that they were free to cover the elections, a significant number,
41%, did not feel free because of threats and intimidation. The major
threats to independent political reporting, according to the informants,
28 HRNJ Press Statement: Media Under Persecution During Campaign Period. Kampala, 20 January 2016.
came from media owners, followed by ruling party officials, government

officials, candidates or their agents, as well as police officers. In one
incident, NTV journalists were denied access to President Musevenis
campaign rallies after the station refused to use drone footage shot by the
NRM campaign team whose authenticity they could not independently
verify, or to use it with a proviso. Efforts by the station to deploy a fresh
team of journalists to the campaign were also rejected, forcing NTV to
back down.
The other threat to independent journalism during the electioneering
period included bribery of journalists by candidates or political
parties. More than slightly half of the journalists ACME interviewed
openly admitted to receiving money from political parties, candidates
or their agents during the election season. In most cases, the money was
described as transport refund or facilitation. In a few cases, journalists
reported receiving money not to cover presidential contender Amama
Mbabazi or to cover him negatively. In the post-election period, in the
months of February and March, more than a dozen journalists covering
what came to be known as the police siege at Dr Besigyes home were
arrested, detained and later released without charge. The journalists
were accused of trespassing and inciting violence.29
The government directive banning live coverage30 of the defiance

campaign by the opposition politicians added to the already tough
restrictions against freedom of expression, which had been preceded
by the shutdown of social media platforms on Election Day.31 However,
a majority of journalists interviewed after the elections said they had
not been cowed and had in fact not obeyed the government directive
banning live coverage of the defiance campaign.
29 https://www.defenddefenders.org/2016/03/uganda-targeting-journalists-election-period-must-end/
30 http://www.newvision.co.ug/new_vision/news/1423918/defiance-campaign-govt-bans-live-media-coverage
31
http://www.monitor.co.ug/Elections/UCC-shutdown-of-social-media-backfires/-/2787154/3083658/-/
ax1g1h/-/index.html
33
CHAPTER FOUR
QUANTITATIVE RESULTS FOR PRE-AND CAMPAIGN PERIOD

Volume of election stories
The media, especially newspapers and television, produced a
relatively high volume of stories on the elections throughout the
nearly six months of electioneering up to 16 February 2016, the last
day of campaigning. The nine newspapers monitored had a total of
4,116 stories, the 33 radio stations had 3,960 stories whereas the five
television stations in the survey aired 2,274 stories. In proportionate
terms, these numbers suggest that radio, the source of political news
for most Ugandans, produced the lowest number of election stories per
media house.
In the print media category, Daily Monitor published the highest
number of election stories while NTV Uganda topped among the TV
stations monitored.
Figure 1: Number of election stories overall by newspapers
34
Figure 1-1: Number of election stories overall by TV
Figure 1-2: Number of radio news stories overall per region*
* We don't provide disaggregated results by radio stations here and in most other cases because of the sheer
number of stations monitored.
35
Space and time allocated to election coverage

In line with the findings on volume of stories, newspapers dedicated
quite a considerable amount of space to election coverage. The
newspapers monitored allocated a total of 3,005,615cm2 to election
stories, with Daily Monitor leading, followed very closely by New Vision.
Both newspapers developed special sections for election reporting
throughout the electioneering period.
TV stations monitored on the other hand allocated a total of 10,873

minutes (181 hours) to election reporting. NBS TV provided the highest
amount of time to the elections followed by NTV Uganda.
Radio stations monitored allocated 10,257 minutes to election stories
with radio stations from central Uganda topping in provision of time.
Once again, these numbers show that in proportionate terms, radio did
a poorer job than television in terms of attention paid to the elections.
Figure 2: Total newspaper space to election coverage
36
Figure 2-1: Total TV time to election coverage
Figure 2-2: Total radio time to election coverage
37
Type of election
The presidential election was the most covered by all three media
platforms monitored. Of the total 10,350 election stories captured on
all platforms, 62% were on the presidential elections, 20.6% on the
parliamentary and 17.4% on both elections.
Figure 3: Type of election
38
Of all the media platforms monitored, television, at 70.8%, paid far more
attention to the presidential than the parliamentary elections. Radio on
the other hand paid significantly more attention to the parliamentary
election. This should perhaps not be surprising given that radio is more
localised than newspapers and television.
Figure 3-1: Type of election by media type
39
Most covered presidential candidate

Incumbent Yoweri Museveni was the most covered candidate across the
media platforms monitored in terms of both space and time. He gobbled
up 38.8% of newspaper space dedicated to the presidential candidates,
followed by Mr Amama Mbabazi with 29.1% and Dr Kizza Besigye with
21.3%. Each of the five minor candidates attracted just about 2% of the
space.
Figure 4: Most covered presidential candidate by newspapers
40
The same pattern was repeated on television, but with Mr Museveni

leading by an even larger margin in terms of his share of the percentage
of time (44.9%) dedicated to the presidential candidates. Dr Besigye,
who came in second, received 21.6% of time, and Mr Mbabazi 19.2%.
Figure 4-1: Most covered presidential candidate by television
Figure 4-2: Most covered presidential candidate by radio
41
A trend analysis shows that Mr Mbabazi was the most covered presidential
candidate in both September and October 2015, the period before the
nominations and campaigns. Once the campaigns kicked off, incumbent
Museveni dominated the coverage until the elections.
Figure 4-3: Trend for most covered presidential candidate by newspapers
Figure 4-4: Trend for most covered candidate by television
42
Figure 4-5: Trend for most covered candidate by radio
A special look at the public broadcaster

Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC TV), which is by law mandated to
give equitable time to all presidential candidates, paid disproportionate
attention to President Yoweri Museveni. The percentage of airtime spent
on the incumbent was 78.9% in December, 81.1% in January and 81.4%
in February.
Senior editors at UBC TV acknowledged that their coverage was tilted
toward President Museveni and blamed it on a lack of resources, saying
only a quarter of their budget to facilitate the coverage of all presidential
candidates was funded. They argued that unlike other candidates,
incumbent Museveni still enjoyed the services of the Presidential Press
Unit, which supplied many of the presidents campaign-related stories.
However, agents of candidate Mbabazi dismissed the UBC argument.
This unequal coverage by UBC TV would become one of the grounds
for Mr Mbabazis election petition in the Supreme Court challenging the
re-election of Mr Museveni.
43
In a press release issued in December 2015, ACME urged UBC to do

more to respect the law and fulfill its mandate of serving all Ugandans.
We asked the Electoral Commission and the Uganda Communications
Commission to show more interest in the issue of equitable coverage.
The two organisations did not take any visible action.
Figure 4-6: Trend for most covered candidate by UBC TV
44
Pictures of presidential candidates

The newspapers monitored published a combined 2,552 pictures of all
the presidential candidates. Once again, President Museveni led with
the highest number of pictures overall (39.1%), followed by Mr Mbabazi
(23.1%) and Dr Besigye (22.4%).
Figure 5: Pictures of candidates overall
45
New Vision (43.9%) and its sister publications, Bukedde (50.4%) and
Orumuri (35.1%), published far more pictures of Mr Museveni than
those of the other candidates. Although Mr Museveni led in most of the
private papers as well, Daily Monitor and The Independent provided
better balance in the use of candidate pictures as the chart below shows.
Figure 5-1: Pictures of candidates overall by newspaper
46
The newspapers monitored published 408 pictures of presidential

candidates on their front pages from 1 September 2015 to 16 February
2016. This means that on average, two pictures of one presidential
candidate or another appeared in the newspapers every day. The results
show that candidate was more often likely to be Mr Museveni, who had
38.2% of the front-page candidate pictures. He was followed by Mr
Mbabazi (26.5%) and Dr Besigye (24.5%).
Figure 5-2: Pictures of candidates on front page
47
Front-page news coverage of presidential candidates

In terms of newspaper front-page news coverage, Mr Mbabazi featured
most overall (32.4%), followed closely by Mr Museveni (30.3%), while
Dr Besigye came third (23.7%).
Figure 6: Most covered candidate on front page
48
However, New Vision and all its sister papers Bukedde, Etop, Rupiny, and
Orumuri gave Mr Museveni more front-page coverage than any other
candidate as the chart below shows. Daily Monitor provided equitable
front-page coverage to the three main contenders for president, with
Mr Museveni and Dr Besigye tying at 28.3% and Mr Mbabazi following
closely at 27.9%.
Figure 6-1: Most covered candidate on front page by publication
49
A trend analysis shows that Mr Mbabazi and Dr Besigye respectively

beat Mr Museveni in front-page coverage in the two months (September
and October) before the presidential nominations and campaigns. Once
the campaigns started, Mr Museveni dominated front-page coverage.
Figure 6-2: Trends for most covered candidate on front page
50
Most covered topic

Politics was the most covered topic by all three media types monitored.
For purposes of this study, the politics category referred to election
stories focusing on electoral competition, power play, gamesmanship
(for example campaign strategies of the different candidates or parties),
and/or the contention between candidates or parties, without being
specific to a sector or particular policy issue. Stories on (the demand for)
electoral reform and relevant election administration actions/issues by
regulators such as the Electoral Commission and Parliament also fell
under politics.32
Figure 7: Most covered topic by newspaper
32 A single story can have multiple themes. In such cases, these themes were all coded.
51
Figure 7-1: Most covered topic by TV station
Figure 7-2: Most covered topic by radio station
52
The findings show that issues that citizens have consistently defined as
the most important public problems requiring government attention
education, health, infrastructure, employment, and corruption did
not get as much coverage as the politics.
Tone of coverage
The tone of coverage remained predominantly neutral across all three
media types monitored from September 2015 to February 2016.
Figure 8: Story tone by media type
Mr Mbabazi and Dr Besigye attracted a more negative tone of coverage

than Mr Museveni across all media types. In the newspapers, stories on
Mr Mbabazi with a negative tone were 18.8%, Dr Besigyes were 17.8%,
and Musevenis 14.8%.
Figure 8-1: Newspaper story tone by candidate
53
The same pattern was repeated in TV coverage although the difference

between the three candidates on negative coverage is more pronounced.
Figure 8-2: TV story tone by candidate
Mr Mbabazi again attracted more negative coverage on radio although

the difference (especially with Dr Besigye) does not appear significant.
Figure 8-3:: Radio story tone by candidate
54
Issues vs Personalities
All over the world, election coverage is often faulted for paying too much
attention to personalities at the expense of issues. Our results show
that the media in Uganda, to their credit, largely focused on the issues
although a significant amount of time and space was still dedicated to
personalities.
Figure 9: Issues vs Personalities
55
Reporting approach
The reporting approach describes the style and methods that journalists
employed in their coverage of the elections. Four approaches, namely
conventional, interpretive, enterprise and investigation, were monitored.
The conventional reporting approach has the following key features:

fact-finding is the dominant posture; spot/hard news that tends to
focus on events/occurrences; generally one-dimensional; neutral (often
uncritical) transmission of facts; tendency to assign equal weight to all
positions; faithful recording of the observed event or issue; suppression
of the journalists prior knowledge of the subject; journalists role is
passive and often reactive; depends largely or entirely on materials
provided by others; tends to be event-centred.
Under the interpretive reporting approach, explanation is the dominant
posture. Other attributes include the following: factual observation is
essential; balanced presentation of pertinent background and contextual
information; goes beyond the immediate event by adding meaning to
complex news situations; explains change and relates events to each
other; full- or multi-dimensional story in which the reader gets both
an accurate account of an event or situation and enough additional
information to assure understanding (Hage et al., p.18).
With the enterprise reporting approach, the story is of the journalists
own initiative and effort. The journalist follows more leads than the usual
straight news story. The story generally depends on material gathered
or generated through the reporters own initiative.
56
Under the investigative reporting approach, exposition is the dominant

posture. The reporting uncovers information that an individual or
entity may have tried to conceal from public scrutiny, or information
that an individual or entity may have had an interest in keeping out of
the public domain. Other attributes include the following: resources
and evidence used by the journalist are clearly discernible; evidence of
strong documentation (the paper trail) and sourcing; revelation of new
information. The results show that election coverage largely employed

the conventional reporting approach. Television and radio returned the
highest proportion of stories written in the conventional style.
Figure 10: Reporting approach by media type
57
Among the newspapers monitored, Bukedde (90.1%) and New Vision

(77.7%) had the highest proportion of stories based on the conventional
approach. Perhaps as expected, the weekly The Independent (34.4%) and
the tri-weekly The Observer had the lowest proportion of stories based
on this approach.
Figure 10-1: Reporting approach per newspaper
58
Among the TV stations, Bukedde had the highest proportion of stories

based on the conventional approach, followed by UBC and WBS. NBS and
NTV Uganda had a lower proportion in comparison to the other stations,
but the conventional approach largely ruled there as well.
Figure 10-2: Reporting approach per TV station
59
Background and context

Without background and context, the audience is easily denied a good
understanding of the evolution of a story. In other cases, the absence
of background and context can lead to distortions or to stories that are
factual but devoid of meaning.
The findings show that most stories by newspapers, TV and radio stations
monitored contained background and context. However, the number of
stories without background and context was still significant.
Figure 11: Background and context by media type
The problem is pronounced among radio stations, where 49.3% of the

stories captured did not contain background and context. Newspapers
did better than the other media platforms, with 63% of the stories
containing background and context.
60
A trend analysis shows that as the country moved closer to the elections,
the proportion of stories that did not contain background and context
increased across both newspapers and television. For radio, the number
fell in February but the percentage (47.8) was in fact higher than that in
the other platforms. It is possible that having covered the election story
for several months, many journalists no longer felt the need to repeat the
primary background.
Figure 11-1: Trend on background & context Newspapers
61
Figure 11-2: Trends for background & context -- Television
Figure 11-3: Trends for background & context -- Radio
62
Interrogation of candidate claims and promises

The media are duty-bound to interrogate the claims and promises
made by candidates in their manifestos and at campaign rallies and
media events. The results show that the Ugandan media abdicated this
responsibility, by and large. Television was the biggest culprit, followed
closely by radio.
Figure 12: Interrogation of claims and promises by media type
63
However, some individual media houses introduced special features

or programmes to verify candidate claims. Notably, Daily Monitor
introduced the Fact Checker and Truthometre, while NTV Uganda
did a special report to fact-check the candidates claims after the second
presidential debate.
Figure 12-1: Interrogation of claims by newspaper
64
Figure 12-2: Interrogation of claims by television
65
Sourcing: Numbers
It is generally accepted that the more human sources a story has, the more
likely that it will speak to a diversity of issues from various viewpoints.
The findings show that across all media platforms, voters were exposed
to far more single-sourced stories than multiple-sourced ones. And in
most cases, those sources were candidates or party officials.
Figure 13: Number of sources by media type
The problem of single-sourcing was far more pronounced on radio,

where 75% of stories captured had only one source.
66
Sourcing: Gender
Newspapers, television, and radio all relied heavily on male sources. Once
again, radio was the biggest culprit on gender imbalance in sourcing. Only
12.9% of the election story sources at the 33 radio stations monitored,
were women. Newspapers did slightly better overall, but only 15.8% of
their sources in election stories were women.
Figure 14: Gender of sources by media type
Informants from the media and civil society attributed the glaring
imbalance on reluctance of female sources to speak to the media, a
perception among many journalists that politics is a male domain, and
that men are more informed than women. However, the trend also
reflected a wider lack of imagination by the media in trying to interest
women, who make up roughly half of the population, in a subject and a
contest that affects their lives.
67
Sourcing: Occupation
Presidential candidates were the most quoted sources across all media
platforms. Parliamentary candidates and party officials were also among
the top five categories of sources quoted in election stories across all
three media types. It was notable, however, that ordinary people were
also in the top five. Newspapers and television did especially well in
giving voice to ordinary people.
Figure 15: Sourcing by occupation by newspaper
68
Figure 15-1: Sourcing by occupation by television
69
Figure 15-2: Sourcing by occupation by radio
70
CHAPTER FIVE
USE OF TWITTER BY THE MAIN CANDIDATES

The official Twitter handles of the three major candidates, Amama
Mbabazi, Kizza Besigye, and Yoweri Museveni, were chosen on the basis
of the frequency of their use of the platform and the level of influence of
their tweets. The following official handles were profiled and monitored:
@AmamaMbabazi
@KizzaBesigye1
@KagutaMuseveni
While the official handles were the primary means of communication

for the three candidates on Twitter, party representatives and campaign
managers often used both official and unofficial party handles to drive
debate and discussion during the electioneering period. Due to the
irregularity of use, and in some cases, unclear ownership, those handles
were not monitored.
Monitoring of the three candidates Twitter profiles took place from
December 2015 to March 2016.
Followers
Mr Museveni had the highest number of followers (199,247 by the end

of January 2016) during each of the four months that were monitored.
He was followed by Mr Mbabazi (132,590 by the end of January). Dr
Besigye, with 22,115 followers by the end of January, consistently lagged
behind his two main opponents. However, as the table below shows, Dr
Besigye, who started from a much smaller base, had the highest relative
growth of followers month-on-month.
71
Table 2: Relative growth of Twitter followers

Yoweri Museveni
Amama Mbabazi
Kizza Besigye
DECEMBER JANUARY
FEBRUARY
MARCH
5.62%
5.38%
6.74%
4.37%
3.37%
32.22%
3.84%
5.19%
16.27%
10.67%
7.18%
20.06%
Figure 16: Total number of followers of candidates Twitter handles
72
Following
This refers to the number of users a profile is following during a selected
time range. It is not unusual that there is a large difference between the
number of followers that a Twitter profile has, and the number of profiles
that it follows. The larger and more diverse your following, the wider the
subjects you have access to and the more likely you are to participate in
discussion, share information and respond to queries.
The findings show there was a significant difference in the approach
of candidates to receiving information through their Twitter timelines,
indicated by the number of profiles they followed.
Table 3: Total number of profiles followed by the candidates
Yoweri Museveni
Amama Mbabazi
Kizza Besigye
DECEMBER
JANUARY
FEBRUARY
MARCH
14
6,241
319
16
6,326
323
17
6,342
325
17
6,579
331
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Tweets
Overall, @KagutaMuseveni sent out the highest number of tweets in
the period monitored. He sent 433 tweets, @AmamaMbabazi 353 and
@KizzaBesigye1 sent 175 tweets. As the figure below shows, candidate
Mbabazi sent more tweets in February while candidate Besigye was top
in March, during the period when he was mostly confined at his home
by state security.
Figure 17: Total number of tweets
At the height of the campaigns in January, Mr Mbabazi was sending an

average of eight tweets per day compared to Mr Musevenis five and
Besigyes one.
74
Table 4: Average tweets per day

DECEMBER
4.6
JANUARY
5.4
FEBRUARY
4.9
MARCH
1.4
MBABAZI
0.4
8.6
4.1
0.2
BESIGYE
0.9
0.9
1.4
2.1
MUSEVENI
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Interactions
Interactions denote both outgoing and incoming communication on
Twitter. Outgoing interactions are replies, retweets or mentions of
another user by the profile. Incoming interactions are replies, retweets
or mentions of the profile by other users. The retweet count is the
number of times the profile has been retweeted during a selected time
range, mention refers to total number of organic mentions made about
the profile during a selected time range, while influencers are the top
users most frequently interacting with the profile through individual
mentions.
Figure 18: Total number of interactions of each candidate on Twitter
76
Mr Museveni led in the total number of interactions over the period

monitored. In monthly terms, he led in December (32,960) and
February (27,521) but was edged out by Mr Mbabazi who had 33,930
interactions in January. In March, Dr Besigye, with a total of 15,181, had
more interactions than Mr Museveni and Mr Mbabazi combined.
The same pattern was repeated when it came to retweets of the
candidates posts. FDCs Besigye, when he was under confinement or
engaging in running battles with the police, attracted far more retweets
in March (6,492) than NRMs Museveni (2,357) and Go Forwards
Mbabazi (916).
Figure 19: Total number of retweets of candidates posts
77
Mr Museveni led each month on number of mentions of his handle,

attracting 26,858 in December 2015 and 25,520 in January 2016.
Figure 20: Total number of mentions of candidates Twitter handles
78
@KagutaMuseveni tweets attracted the highest number of replies in

December (2,704) and February (2,437). @AmamaMbabazi had most
replies in January (2,484) while @KizzaBesigye1 beat them at it in
March (1,270).
Figure 21: Total number of replies to candidates tweets
79
Response to questions on Twitter

On the whole, candidates were slow to answer questions directly sent to
their Twitter handles.
Of the 3,410 questions addressed to @KagutaMuseveni, none was

responded to from 1 December 2015 to 31 March 2016.
@AmamaMbabazi, who responded to the highest number of
questions, answered only eight out of the 2,148 sent to his handle.
@KizzaBesigye1, who received the fewest number of questions
(1,789), responded to only two of them in the period.
80
CHAPTER SIX
ELECTION DAY AND POST-ELECTION COVERAGE

Government moves against social media
The build-up to Election Day and the post-election period was
characterised by increasingly bold and draconian statements by
government officials who frequently warned against what they saw as
irresponsible opinions being bandied about on social media with regard
to the electoral process and some of the actors involved. To legitimise its
intentions to bring social media and political expression in general under
control, the government invoked security concerns as the grounds for
its interventions that culminated in the shutdown of Twitter, Facebook,
WhatsApp and mobile money services for almost 72 hours starting on
voting day, 18 February 2016.
This unprecedented shutdown of social media, repeated on swearing-in

day on 12 May, inevitably bred suspicion about the governments motives
especially in the urban areas where Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp
have become popular platforms for information sharing and debate.
Matters were not helped by the Electoral Commissions mismanagement
of the elections in the central and eastern districts of Kampala, Wakiso,
and Jinja respectively where some voters were disenfranchised due
to inexplicable delays to open polling stations and to deliver voting
materials.
Journalists have lately come to rely in significant ways on social media
for stories and to monitor trends and developments with potential for
news. With the limitations that were imposed on Internet access and
social media use on Election Day, it is plausible that journalists missed
important red flags that they would have captured through Tweets and
Facebook posts by citizens sharing their experiences about what was
going on in their locales during elections. Although many Ugandans
81
were able to go around the blockade by downloading Virtual Private

Networks (VPN), the social media shutdown presumably reduced the
number of widely shared eye-witness accounts by voters and journalists,
thus shielding the Electoral Commission from uncomfortable questions
from engaged citizens that it would have had to answer in accounting for
its actions.
No doubt social media, being largely unregulated and unconstrained by

the strictures of professional journalism, had the potential to elevate
and confer a degree of legitimacy on poll-rigging rumours and innuendo
that circulated freely during the immediate pre-election period. The
mainstream media did the country a great service by treading cautiously
whenever all sorts of outlandish claims surfaced on social media. In
some instances, simply ignoring and not giving vent to such claims was
important as it ensured they were never unwittingly validated.
However, in the absence of evidence of each claim or rumour being
independently assessed before being dismissed where untrue, it is
plausible that mainstream media also missed important tips from citizen
journalists.
Media legitimise official results
Some have argued that the largely unquestioning live coverage

of the official release of preliminary results by the Electoral
Commission legitimised those results (and the leading candidate) and
made it difficult for the public to hear out those who wanted to highlight
and challenge the unfairness of the process and its outcome.
82
Moreover, when the Electoral Commission started announcing

the presidential results, journalists got caught up in the moment.
Conspicuously absent from the coverage were attempts to hold the
Commission accountable to its own standard operating procedures for
the release of results. The process was not as transparent as it ought to be,
but many journalists did not ask the questions they should have asked. Of
particular concern was the status of the electronic results transmission
system. There was scanty public information about the system how
exactly it worked and what was to be expected of it. Not until the hearing
of Mr Amama Mbabazis Supreme Court petition challenging President
Musevenis re-election did the public get a real sense of the workings of
the results management system.
It is also worth noting that the Electoral Commissions directives warning

voters against carrying phones and taking photographs at polling stations
was not subjected to sustained questioning. Although the opposition and
civil society protested the directives, the media simply reported their
words against those of the EC officials. The legality and implications of
the directives were not explored fully.
Media as election watchdog
Although the media widely covered the voting delays in Kampala and
Wakiso districts, there was never a full investigation into what actually
happened. Given the geographical centrality of polling stations in
these districts and their locations so close to the Electoral Commission
headquarters, it was inconceivable that the delivery and distribution of
voting materials could have been so poorly planned. The result was that
voters in some places had to wait in queues for as long as eight hours
in order to cast their votes. Many gave up entirely as a result of the
lack of transparency and timely information on the part of the election
administrators.
Despite the Electoral Commissions best efforts to rationalise its

handling of the elections in the affected districts where materials
delayed to arrive and voting started in the late afternoon/early evening or was cancelled, journalists did not independently verify and report what had actually happened. Although generally skeptical in their
coverage of these events, many reported what was obvious and did not
provide analysis that delved sufficiently into the causes and ramifica-
83
tions of the Electoral Commissions actions and inactions. These actions

and inactions were never presented in context to help citizens and the
political class understand the full magnitude of these events.
For instance, it would have helped to do comparative analyses of 2011 data

on voter turnout and voting patterns to glean trends that could have been
useful in explaining if there were any political calculations behind what
had happened in Kampala and Wakiso. Did results of previous elections
support claims that the urban electorate of Kampala and Wakiso
leaned heavily toward the opposition? Was the Electoral Commissions
behaviour a wilful attempt to influence the outcome of the elections
in these areas or was it mere bungling by an under-resourced public
agency? The real story of what happened remains a matter of speculation
and the Commission seems to have been let off the hook rather easily.
In the aftermath of vote counting and announcement of results, many

journalists were either ill equipped or unprepared to interrogate the
candidates claims and to take them to task. Worth noting is the claim by
candidate Besigye that he won the elections, having earlier on stormed
a security facility in Kampalas Naguru neighbourhood where he said
rigging was being coordinated. The media never fully explored the
validity of these claims and their implications. To our knowledge, by
the end of May 2016, no media house had, for instance, investigated the
operations of FDCs tally centre, whose workers were variously arrested
by police. Similarly, the police were never fully challenged to prove that
they had nothing to hide about whatever was going on at the Naguru
house.
President Musevenis claim that most of the hundreds of thousands of

the spoilt votes were his, never came under serious scrutiny either. Dr
Besigyes demand for an international audit of the ballots was covered,
but its ramifications never explored.
84
To their credit, the media gave the election petition wall-to-wall

coverage, with some TV stations broadcasting the event live in its
entirety while the major newspapers reprinted the proceedings

verbatim, thereby giving audiences a real flavour of the mood and issues
that were the subject of the petition. Where the media seemed to stumble, however, was in the failure to provide adequate context, perspective
and explanation on the key emerging issues in the petition. Moreover, a
major development at the start of the petition the reported break-ins
at two chambers of petitioner Mbabazis lawyers was not subjected
to adequate independent investigation and follow-up. Was it another
one of the excesses of the police or stage-managed events by corrupt
lawyers? The public may never know.
Shooting the messenger
The media have appeared helpless in the face of the governments

increasingly brazen interference with the publics right to know and
to free expression. In February and March 2016, more than a dozen
journalists were arrested or detained by police for merely covering
the siege at Dr Besigyes Kasangati home, north of Kampala. Then
in early May, the government set a precedent by banning coverage of
legitimate political expression, notably the FDCs defiance campaign
which entailed weekly prayers and work boycott. Although the ban on
the defiance campaign itself was backed by a court decision, the media
seemed to accept without question the governments attempt to frame
defiance as a threat to national security and public order. The polices
heavy-handed response to the FDC activities came in for severe criticism,
and Daily Monitor, in particular, was at the forefront of exposing the
police's abuse of its powers and its use of excessive force to clamp down
on legitimate political dissent.
With time, the actions of the police have blurred the line between routine
law and order enforcement and response to genuine national security
threats. Many are now puzzled by the similarity between the methods
the police use to deal with political dissenters and those that are usually
associated in the fight against terrorism. The general tendency to cover
the run-ins between the police and the defiance activists as normal
85
political drama, has distracted the media from interrogating the dangers
of criminalising legitimate political differences and treating them as
threats to national security.
That said, the medias sustained interest in Dr Besigyes arrest and
detention after the elections and the inauguration of President
Musevenis new term, has kept alive the unanswered questions about
Ugandas constitutional trajectory. The media have provided substantial
space and time for crucial debates about resolving the impasse over the
political and electoral reforms needed to improve Ugandas democratic
culture.
The blocking of social media by government was a major setback for the media and several
Ugandans during the election period. Courtesy Photo
86
QUANTITATIVE RESULTS
Space and time dedicated to elections
The media continued to dedicate enormous space and time to the polls
on Election Day and beyond. From 18 February to 31 March, the nine
newspapers monitored dedicated 352,424cm2 to the election, whereas
the five television stations in the study, gave the electoral process 1,164
minutes. The election results and the petition filed by Mr Mbabazi were
covered quite extensively.
Figure 22: Share of different newspapers of space dedicated to elections
87
Among newspapers monitored, New Vision provided the most amount

of space to the elections while NTV Uganda led among television
stations. The finding that UBC TV provided the least amount of time to
the elections in this period is consistent with the public broadcasters
reluctance to cover controversial political subjects. Once Mr Museveni
was declared the winner by the Electoral Commission, UBC TV by and
large moved on to other important issues. It appears that as far as the
public broadcaster was concerned, the election was over, never mind
that Mr Mbabazi filed an election petition that provided lots of news
and drama, and that Dr Besigye was in the headlines, appropriately so,
almost every day.
Figure 22-1: Share of TV stations of time dedicated to elections
88
Most covered candidate

Mr Museveni was the most covered of the candidates in post-election
newspaper reportage whereas Dr Besigye dominated television coverage,
followed closely by Mr Mbabazi. Dr Besigye also came first in radio coverage,
followed by Mr Museveni and Mr Mbabazi. Coverage of Dr Besigye focused
mostly on his defiance campaign, arrests and run-ins with police while
that of Mr Mbabazi dealt mostly with the election petition.
Figure 23: Candidate share of newspaper space in post-election period
89
Figure 23-1: Candidate share of TV time in post-election period
Electoral administration issues

The study analysed the different electoral administration issues that
were covered on Election Day and the immediate aftermath. The election
results attracted the biggest attention followed by administration and
coverage on issues around transparency and accountability.
Figure 24: Coverage of electoral administration issues by media type
90
Most covered topic

Politics continued to dominate coverage after the elections followed
closely by the presidential election petition. Security and human rights
were also high on the agenda.
Figure 25: Most covered topics in newspapers
91
Figure 25-1: Most covered topics on TV
92
Figure 25-2: Most covered topics on radio
93
Performance on selected measures of quality

The findings suggest that in some cases, the media performed better
by way of quality after the elections. For instance, in terms of reporting
approach, the percentage of stories based on single sources generally
dropped, with a corresponding increase in multiple sourcing. Similarly,
the percentage of stories that contained background and context went
up across the three media types. It appears that once the pressure of
covering the campaigns and Election Day was over, journalists were
able to reflect a little more, increasingly provide perspective and involve
more people in the conversation. While this is to be lauded, obviously it
would have made even more sense if voters had seen more of the same
throughout the campaign season.
Figure 26: Number of sources in post-election stories
94
Figure 27: Proportion of post-election stories with background & context
95
CHAPTER SEVEN
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Conclusion
The findings of this study present a mixed picture of media coverage of
the 2016 elections. The expansion of access to media by the population
and the growth in media outlets, including social media, ensured
extensive coverage and a high degree of attention given to the electoral
process. And increasing access to electricity in rural areas enabled more
members of the electorate to have more regular access to television and
to ensure their phones were charged and this in turn meant they followed
the campaigns relatively more closely than was possible in the past.
The media for the most part used a neutral tone in their election coverage
and also focused more on issues than personalities. Although the usual
suspects candidates and party officials dominated the coverage,
there was a notable increase in the use of ordinary people as sources
over the project period.
Yet, many of the same old challenges persisted. Too many stories were
single-sourced, and the conventional straight news reporting approach
(he said-she said) remained dominant. The dearth of enterprise and
investigation was compounded by the failure of many journalists to
interrogate the claims that the candidates made in their manifestos and
on the campaign trail. Without seriously taking candidates and their
parties to task about their plans for the country, the coverage continued
the tendency to treat elections as rituals that come around every five
years and not as moments for national reflection on the direction the
country should take.
96
No doubt the media covered the elections in a very challenging

environment. There were pressures from government and ruling
party officials as witnessed by the attempt to compel private television
stations to use footage provided by the presidents media/campaign

team. The police frequently attacked journalists in the course of duty,
often treating them as intruders on election activities. Assaults and
intimidation of journalists, at the hands of state security operatives of
all rank as well as party officials, were routine across the country. In
several districts, government officials prevented the broadcast of radio
programmes that hosted or were booked by opposition candidates or
their agents and others viewed as critical of the government.
In some instances, radio presenters and talk show hosts were suspended
for hosting opposition candidates especially Dr Besigye. There were
reports of journalists being bribed or offered inducements to favour
particular candidates in their reporting. The inadequacy of financial
and technical resources to cover the entire country and all candidates
equitably led to built-in biases and limitations in the scope of the
coverage of the elections. This gave the incumbent an edge that his
competitors could not match, thereby creating an uneven playing field
that was partly legally sanctioned and partly a deliberate creation of the
political class.
Ultimately, the total effect of the election coverage environment

described and the nature of the coverage as recorded, demonstrate that
there were severe limitations on the ability of the media to contribute to
free and fair elections. In some cases, the media did actually under-serve
the electorate many were new voters by not providing adequate
background and context to the issues and by not critically interrogating
the candidates claims and promises.
It is telling that the media appeared to improve after the election season,
by expanding the diversity of views and sources, as well as providing
more background and context in their reporting. Inadequate preparation,
the relative lack of experience and institutional memory, and a hostile
environment, all meant that the media operated in safe mode during
the elections, to survive it, rather than influence the process.
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The decision to issue regular monitoring reports as part of our objective

of constructive intervention has been validated by feedback from key
editors. Felix Osike, the managing editor at New Vision, said: The ACME
reports were very useful in helping us realign our coverage, especially in
terms of giving prominence to candidates. When the report pointed out
the disparity in coverage of candidates by New Vision, we went back to the
drawing board and ensured we gave space to all presidential candidates,
as best as we could.
His Daily Monitor counterpart, Charles Odoobo Bichachi, concurred: Yes

this approach was very useful in guiding our coverage in that it raised the
flag to areas we should pay more attention to and also gave us feedback
on our innovations around election coverage like the Fact Checker. We
were able to increase coverage of the parliamentary and local council
elections as a result of feedback from ACME.
Following are highlights of the results of ACMEs analysis of media
coverage:
1. Although for the majority of Ugandans radio is the main source of

information, and political news in particular, it provided the fewest
stories compared to newspapers and television stations. This means
that large sections of rural audiences who are more dependent on
radio than their urban counterparts were under-served as they were
denied exposure to vital information about the campaign issues and
the candidates.
2. In addition to providing fewer stories about the elections, radio
stations also devoted the least amount of time to the elections. Despite
the flexibility that radio programming offers, radio journalists did
not take advantage of formats such as magazines and documentaries
to provide in-depth coverage and in the process make up for the
shortfall in number of stories.
98
3. The presidential race dominated the overall coverage of the elections, while the parliamentary elections took up less than a quarter
of the coverage. But there were notable variations among the

different platforms. Radio paid more attention to the parliamentary
elections than it did the presidential, a fact that reflects this
mediums decentralised nature and affinity for grassroots politics at
constituency level.
4. The power of incumbency was visible in the coverage, with candidate

Museveni enjoying the lions share of the coverage across all platforms.
Whereas candidate Mbabazi benefited from the politicking around
The Democratic Alliance (the ultimately unsuccessful effort by
opposition forces to field one presidential candidate) in the lead up
to nominations, that advantage was short-lived as he was relegated
as soon as the campaigns started, a trend that continued through the
elections.
5. In the print media, Mr Museveni lost the battle for dominance of the
front page to Mr Mbabazi and Dr Besigye before the nominations.
But once the nominations were done and the campaigns started, Mr
Mbabazi and Dr Besigye were displaced from the front pages, which
Mr Museveni then dominated until voting day. Yet again, there were
variations in this case among the media houses. All outlets of the
largely state-owned Vision Group gave Mr Museveni more front-page
coverage overall than they did any other candidate.
6. The study found that politics was the most dominantly covered
subject by newspapers, radio, and television. Although citizens
had identified education, health, infrastructure, employment, and
corruption as the main issues they wanted the government to act
upon, these did not see as much light of day as political machinations.
7. The media adopted a largely neutral tone in covering the elections,
notwithstanding that the main challengers, Mr Mbabazi and Dr
Besigye, experienced more instances of negative coverage than the
incumbent.
99
8. Coverage of the elections by and large focused on issues as opposed

to personalities. Journalists resisted the temptation to dwell on
the candidates as individuals. Consequently, most of the reportage
paid attention to the issues that the candidates addressed on the
campaigned trail.
9. The bulk of the coverage was approached conventionally especially
by television and radio journalists. This means that the stories were
presented as hard news reports about the campaigns, with little
attempt to analyse and provide deep and broad insight into the issues
or events covered as the case would be for reporting approached in
the investigative, interpretive, and enterprise formats.
10. A significant proportion of the coverage contained relevant

background and context to the stories reported, without which
the audiences would have been unable to appreciate the issues
holistically. However, almost half of radio coverage was devoid of
background and context. This is a worrying trend considering that
radio is the medium of choice for rural audiences who would have
had the most to benefit from more coverage that fully explained what
was at stake electorally.
11. The claims and promises that candidates made largely went
unchecked as the media, especially television and radio, were poor
at interrogating these claims and promises. The failure to interrogate
the claims that candidates made in their manifestos and on the
campaign trail is a symptom of a larger tendency of letting politicians
set the agenda without holding them accountable.
12. Sourcing was a generally problematic aspect of the election coverage,

with more single-sourced than multiple-sourced stories. Candidates
and party officials were the most cited sources, although ordinary
people were used quite frequently. But the very limited use of
female sources reinforced the male dominance over politics and the
perception that women are less interested in, and informed about,
100
politics and public affairs.
13. The top three presidential candidates were active on Twitter but they
did not fully exploit the opportunity to engage their following. They
used Twitter as a space to provide information, but not to listen,
respond and debate.
Recommendations
Reform of media regulation

Ugandas statutory media regulation regime, which appears to err more
on the side of control rather than that of promoting freedom of expression,
must be reformed. It must be more independent (from the government
and vested interests), transparent, representative and accountable.
In particular, the Uganda Communications Act, 2013, which provides

for the Uganda Communications Commission, as well as the Minimum
Broadcasting Standards, must be reviewed and amended so that its
provisions are in line with Ugandas regional and international obligations
and commitments on freedom of expression. Similarly, the Press and
Journalist Act, 2000, which establishes the Media Council, and provides
for licensing of journalists, must be reviewed and amended.
Equitable access to, and coverage by, public media
Parliament should require the Uganda Communications Commission

and the Electoral Commission to institute a credible and acceptable
mechanism steeped within the law and the Constitution that can be
relied upon for the implementation of the provisions of the law(s)
requiring equitable access to public media by all candidates. The
mechanism should include penalties for media houses that violate such
provisions.
All stakeholders including the ministry of information and ICT,
regulators, political parties, civil society, and the media must be
101
consulted in a transparent process on the details of the mechanism and

any enabling legal changes that may be needed.
Complaints, verification and enforcement
As the electoral administrator, the Electoral Commission should ensure

that a proper complaints, verification, adjudication and enforcement
mechanism is in place to respond to complaints about media coverage
filed by any aggrieved party during elections. This authority should not
be ceded to other agencies but rather require of them to facilitate the
delivery of free and fair media coverage of the elections as provided for
within the legal framework.
Reform of Uganda Broadcasting Corporation
Parliament should amend the law establishing UBC to affirm that it is a

public broadcaster and an independent corporation accountable to the
public, and not a national/state broadcaster that is subservient to the
government of the day. In particular, the law should protect and safeguard
the editorial independence of UBC, provide for more transparent and
representative governance, secure reasonable funding for its operations,
and promote professionalism.
Investment in election coverage
Media houses need to prepare better and more systematically to cover

elections. This includes investing in logistical capabilities if they are to
avoid being dictated to by the players in the electoral process who have
vested interests.
Promoting Guidelines for Media Coverage of Elections
Media houses need to do more to promote within their newsrooms

the Guidelines for Media Coverage of Elections. In particular, they must
ensure respect for the following key principles: accuracy; fairness; use
of, and reliance on multiple sources, corrections and the right of reply;
focus on issues; equitable coverage of the main candidates; rejection of
102
bribery of journalists; and independence of media houses and journalists.

Educating police and public on role of media in elections
Statutory authorities such as the Uganda Human Rights Commission, the

Uganda Communications Commission, and the Electoral Commission as
well as civil society organisations need to do more to educate the police
and the public on the important role of the media in the political process,
especially elections.
Holding the media accountable
Civil society and the public need to do more to hold the media
accountable during the electioneering season based on evidence such as
findings of media monitoring reports.
Finally, ACME intended this media monitoring project to document
whether coverage contributed to a free and fair election or subverted
the process. We also hoped that it would be a process of constructive
intervention whereby gaps in, and concerns about, coverage are
addressed before the elections.
We strongly believe that the monthly monitoring reports met the
latter objective, giving editors and journalists a credible and independent
assessment of their work that pointed out areas where more could be
done, and things that could be done better.
It is harder to tell with certainty whether the media contributed to a free

and fair election, or subverted the process. However, both the appellants
and the defendants referred to the ACME monthly monitoring reports as
they argued their cases in the presidential election petition in the Supreme
Court. And the court in its preliminary ruling also made reference to the
ACME reports while noting the importance of the public broadcaster to
give equitable access to all candidates. And to this end, ACME contributed
to the body of public knowledge by providing crucial reference materials
for further scholarship, and contributing to the public debate of the role
played by Ugandan media in the 2016 election.
103
APPENDICES
BREAKDOWN OF QUANTITATIVE RESULTS BY MEDIA HOUSE

FINDINGS FOR PRE-AND CAMPAIGN PERIOD
Type of election
Figure 28: Type of election by newspaper
104
Figure 28-1: Type of election by TV station
105

Figure 29: Most covered candidate by newspaper
106
Figure 29-1: Most covered candidate by TV station
107
Most covered candidate on UBC TV

Figure 29-2: Most covered candidate by UBC in December
Figure 29-3: Most covered candidate by UBC in January
108
Figure 29-4: Most covered candidate by UBC in February
Tone of coverage
Figure 30: Tone of coverage by newspaper
109
Figure 30-1: Tone of coverage by TV station
110

Figure 31: Background and context by newspaper
Figure 31-1: Background and context by TV station
111
Sourcing
Figure 32: Number of sources by newspaper
112
Figure 32-1: Number of sources by TV station
Figure 33: Gender of sources by publication
113
Figure 33-1: Gender of sources by TV station
114
FINDINGS FOR POST ELECTION PERIOD

Figure 34: Most covered candidate by newspaper
115
Figure 34-1: Most covered candidate by TV station
116
Sourcing
Figure 35: Number of sources by newspaper
117
Figure 35-1: Number of sources by TV station
118

Figure 36: Background and context by newspaper
Figure 36-1: Background and context by TV station
119
ACME 2016

Monitoring Media Coverage of The 2016 Elections/Final Report

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MONITORING MEDIA COVERAGE

OF THE 2016 ELECTIONS

MONITORING MEDIA COVERAGE

Final Report/June 2016

Several individuals contributed to the final report and we single out a

ACME Monitoring Media Coverage of the 2016 Elections

Final Report/June 2016

Most Covered Topic......................................................................................................51

Media Legitimise Official Results........................................................................82

Final Report/June 2016

3-4 November 2015

Nomination day for presidential candidates

Start of presidential campaigns

Nomination of Members of Parliament

Start of campaigns for Members of Parliament

End of campaigns for both presidential and parliamentary

Start of ACME monitoring of media coverage of elections

This report contains cumulative findings of a project the African Centre

The project, which started in July 2015, analysed coverage of the

ACME Monitoring Media Coverage of the 2016 Elections

The major media houses introduced new innovations to help citizens

These positive aspects of election coverage were, however, often

Final Report/June 2016

of newspaper space devoted to presidential candidates, with coverage

The conventional reporting approach, in which journalists usually

ACME Monitoring Media Coverage of the 2016 Elections

stories than the professionally preferred multiple-sourced ones. This

In terms of topics covered, the media paid more attention to

However, radio had a better balance of attention between the

Throughout the electioneering season, Uganda Broadcasting Corporation

Final Report/June 2016

commentary airtime on elections, with the next candidate, Mr Mbabazi,

These challenges undermined the medias potential to provide information

ACME also monitored the presidential candidates presence on

ACME Monitoring Media Coverage of the 2016 Elections

Final Report/June 2016

2. To raise awareness and engage key stakeholders on electoral

3. To enhance public confidence and promote the participation of

As the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe has rightly

ACME Monitoring Media Coverage of the 2016 Elections

The purpose of ACMEs media monitoring project, therefore, was to

2. To monitor media compliance with election reporting guidelines and

3. To influence journalists, editors and media owners to provide

Unlike in previous instances where media monitoring reports were

Final Report/June 2016

The media and elections

Provision of information to enable voters make informed decisions.

ACME Monitoring Media Coverage of the 2016 Elections

Monitoring media coverage

Dedication of space and time to elections.

Distinguishing between news and opinion.

Equitable coverage of the candidates.

A good mix of both episodic and issue-based coverage.

Balance of attention paid to candidates/political parties and the

Independence of media houses and journalists.

Most of these standards were captured in a publication titled

Final Report/June 2016

They were developed through a participatory process, and most media

Previous media monitoring reports on Ugandan elections indicate that

State/public media have also been accused of denying access to opposition

ACME Monitoring Media Coverage of the 2016 Elections

information against which to judge all sides in an electoral contest.

Predominance of episodic reporting and dearth of issue-based coverage