Uganda: ‘Journalists Must Question Political Narratives in 2026 Polls’

Solomon Sserwanja is the Executive Director of the African Institute for Investigative Journalism (AIIJ). He spoke to The Independent’s Ronald Musoke about the prominent role of journalists in the 2026 general elections.

Journalists and the media have always played a crucial role during elections. How essential do you think their role will be in the upcoming election campaigns?

The media is going to be very important in this election. We have to provide information, question the powerful, ask them the uncomfortable, hard questions. We also have to be very careful about the source of information we are publishing. We have to ask ourselves: Is the information true? Truth comes with a bundle of facts. Usually, as journalists, we listen to people but do we ever question the mindset of the person giving us that information and what agenda they are pushing? If the NRM party calls us for a press conference, is it just to give us information? Politicians have learned that they can use the media to push their own agenda and, usually, we don’t know that they often have selfish interests at heart. So, as we get to the election campaigns, we need to question the motive behind the information we are receiving. Every piece of information should not be taken at face value. Yes, you’re giving me the information, thank you, but what is your end goal? You’re, for instance, telling me that 500 NUP supporters have defected to the NRM party, and you are calling me to show the public that the NRM or any other political party is getting stronger but is it actually true that 500 supporters of NUP have defected? You cannot parade 10 people and tell me 500 people have crossed from NUP to NRM. How did you get those numbers? What is the motive behind those that have crossed? Why are they leaving their party? Where are their membership cards? Does the party they are leaving know about these cards? Can we subject the information and the numbers to the test of truth? I know that in the newsroom there’s always the issue of speed versus accuracy, but can we just do some fact-checking or verification? All I am saying is that sometimes the media is being used for political propaganda. And we need to find a way of getting out of being used by politicians.The media should help our democracy grow by focusing on issues and holding leaders accountable and asking them the hard questions rather than regurgitating what they say.

The African Institute for Investigative Journalism (AIIJ) is currently training and preparing journalists to effectively report on the 2026 general elections. How is the training progressing so far?

First, I may not have the actual statistics now, but about 50% of journalists who are going to be covering these elections are new reporters. Many of the senior journalists have left the newsroom. You will see young vibrant people fresh from university reporting this election. They haven’t perhaps covered any election before, or if they have, they only covered the most recent election (2021). So, we at the AIIJ think that we have a moral duty to pass on what we have gained over the many years to the young reporters. We have a moral obligation as senior reporters to share with the young journalists what we have gathered and learned over the years (from the aspect of covering an election). How do you, for instance, stay safe during the campaigns? Sometimes our passion to tell stories as young reporters overrides our ability to think about safety. So, how can we tame our passions? How can we report objectively? How can we be able to ask uncomfortable questions? How do you manage the pressure of working on stories and sending them back to the newsroom while on a campaign trail? How do you investigate an election? How can you create a body of evidence that you can use to help you put out a very credible story? Many other issues come up such as bribery. How do you protect yourself against being used by politicians? We’re talking about a reporter from say the Karamoja sub-region, who earns about Shs 20,000 per story. So, you can imagine a prospective or incumbent MP from Karamoja coming over to them saying, here’s a million shillings. What do you expect? We also have reporters who have inclinations to political parties. How do we actually put our political passions aside to stay true to the independence and accuracy values that we stand for as journalists? In the past, I have seen a reporter kneeling before President Museveni at a press conference and saying: Mr. President, I thank you for ruling this country. So how do you stay past all that? Therefore, as an Institute, we have trained over 150 reporters across the country. We are going to go back for another round to train more reporters. We are targeting about 300 journalists across the country. As AIIJ, we think that we have to play a role in shaping our democracy through training and building capacity and supporting journalists who are going to be covering the upcoming election.

Indeed, many newsrooms are losing top journalistic talent for various reasons. Do you see this as a worrying trend, especially ahead of the 2026 general elections?

The journalism industry in Uganda has indeed grown over the recent past. We now have over 35 television stations and over 300 radio FM radio stations, according to the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC). Many newspapers, both print and digital platforms, are coming up and many of these are owned by senior journalists who have since left mainstream newsrooms. I think it’s healthy that even as senior journalists leave the newsroom, new energies come up and carry the mantle forward. But it’s important for the senior journalists who are leaving the newsroom to have a moral obligation to pass on the knowledge they have gained over the years to the next generation of journalists. Veteran journalists like Onyango Obbo, Wafula Oguttu, Richard Kavuma, James Tumusiime, Carol Beyanga, Charles Bichachi, Frank Walusimbi, Faridah Nakazibwe and Hatmah Nalugwa Sekaya have left newsrooms denying young reporters a wealth of experience. There is, therefore, need to come up with a mechanism for tapping into their journalism knowledge and skills. Imagine if we could get 20 senior journalists to mentor at least five young journalists each, imagine the multiplier effect of that?

For journalists who will be embedded with the presidential candidates throughout the campaign period, what professional advice would you offer to help them maintain objectivity and avoid bias in their reporting?

To be honest, this is a hard question because journalists are human too. If they attach you for 90 days to follow one presidential candidate on their campaign trail, it is tough. I mean you are (sometimes) having lunch and dinner with them. Some of those political camps even give allowances to the journalists. You sit with their communications teams throughout the campaign period and indirectly or directly, you’re sucked into being on their side. So, most likely, the framing of the story will somehow change because you feel like you must help this candidate to deliver. I have had an opportunity of anchoring the news on television, and one time, I was supposed to interview one of the presidential candidates. So, I pushed that candidate so hard, and he felt embarrassed. But then, this reporter (on the campaign trail), my colleague, called me after the broadcast and said, how could you interview him like that? And, I was like, you’re a reporter, please report what is in the field. I am a news anchor, and actually, I have brains, and I ask my questions. So, there was some sort of feeling that how could I treat “his candidate” like that? But, what just happened there is natural. And, I think this is where editors have to come in. You cannot assign someone to cover one candidate for 90 days.

The upcoming elections will take place in a digital era dominated by social media platforms like TikTok, X, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube–where misinformation and disinformation are widespread. What guidance would you offer journalists on how to responsibly gather information and effectively use these platforms during the election campaigns?

The Internet is going to be the epicentre of the 2026 elections. All the different political parties are going to be pushing a lot of information online and the political showdown is going to be right on social media and we can draw from the most recent election of 2021. In the previous elections, we had two trending hashtags; “#We are removing a dictator” and “#Steady progress.” If you analyse those hashtags, you will see a lot of misinformation and disinformation that came through. There were deliberate efforts to manufacture information and portray a certain candidate in a certain way but we need to question those narratives. Remember, not only locally based Ugandans are interested in the upcoming election; the Ugandans in the diaspora are equally interested. They will attempt to push out and control certain narratives. And this is where journalists must rise above the online noise. We need to fact-check information. Not every piece of information that we find online should be published. There are so many videos that leak during the elections. Videos of pre-ticked ballots, videos of soldiers voting, all these things. Can we examine them? Can we use the different fact-checking tools online? You’ll find that some of this information happened many years ago and it’s from a different country. These are some of the things that we train journalists. The reason why people will come to your page is not to find out information but they’ll come to your page to find out whether it is true. I know that there’s a growing role of citizen journalism where citizens are now putting out content. They have taken on the role of reporters with their phones.That means they control narratives and the public follows them. So, mainstream media is going to be put under a lot of pressure from citizen journalism but we have a moral obligation as reporters to get the facts right.

Given the growing pressure from citizen journalists and the critical need for accuracy, what strategies would you consider to help newsrooms maintain professionalism in their reporting?

We either adapt or we die. We need to adjust because we cannot do mainstream journalism the old way. Newsrooms are now going digital. This is how Daily Monitor, The Observer and The Independent, which originally used to be just newspapers now, encourage their reporters to also do videos and pictures and post them online. This is why the digital desk has been strengthened even further, more than the circulation. There are always updates on Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok. Initially, TikTok was for young people but now big media houses have TikTok accounts because the audience is changing and that means mainstream media has to change with the audience. Newsrooms must now make it a point that the reporters who go to the field don’t have to wait for their pieces in the evening. We have to be innovative to stay ahead of the game. Newsrooms have to create digital desks and strengthen them with young vibrant reporters who know how to use digital platforms to generate content, graphics, pictures and do more explainers. So, media houses need to evolve in order to thrive.

While there’s widespread support for hiring young, vibrant talent, retaining them requires competitive pay–something local newsrooms have historically struggled with. How can this challenge be addressed, moving forward?

We must continuously innovate and develop new products that we can bring to the market (to generate more revenue). For instance, we could explore hosting conferences or adopt a grant-making model. In addition, partnering with NGOs that manage substantial budgets presents an opportunity for collaboration–especially in areas such as transparency and accountability, where our strengths are mutually reinforcing. Moreover, if the public truly values quality journalism, there should be a collective moral obligation to fund and support it.

The upcoming election will also happen at a time when we are seeing the growing influence of the military in the country’s elections, if the recent Kawempe North by-election is anything to go by. What advice do you offer for both field reporters and newsroom managers in terms of physical safety and digital security?

The Kawempe North by-election, whether deliberate or not, sent shock waves down our spines. One journalist said, ‘he had been told that before they go to the field, they should wear a helmet and a press jacket but, with what we saw in the Kawempe by-election where there seemed to be a targeted attack on those that were putting on those helmets and press jackets, what is left for them to do?’ We need to ensure that our journalists are thoroughly trained on safety. There is what is called hard territory security training – training which is for reporters who cover war, conflict or crime. This is the kind of training Ugandan journalists should possibly go for because things are different, especially for reporters who are going to cover the opposition candidates. Beyond physical training, mental health is equally important. For many of the reporters who have been beaten, no one has helped them deconstruct their trauma. Journalists see a lot. We see blood. We see people we have interviewed die. Think of journalists, who covered the Kasese massacre or the killings in Kampala in 2020. So, the mental health of journalists is very important and I think it’s time that we pay attention to it because the journalists will break down. Digital security is another one. We are increasingly getting information that people are tapping our phones. I cannot say it’s the government because I don’t have facts and evidence, but some people are tapping our phones. So, we need to think about digital security too. At a personal level, you need to invest in yourself. Read and learn. There are so many tutorials on YouTube that speak to digital security. Some organisations are doing similar trainings; the Africa Centre for Media Excellence (ACME), and the AIIJ, among many others. When these organizations put out their calls for training, apply and get the skills.

By Independent (Kampala).