SECTOR 4 Similarly, business interests are “put on the backs of editors”, who routinely censor themselves as a result. For example, The Daily Monitor group – whose majority shareholder is the Nation Media Group owned by the Agha Khan, a principle shareholder in the Group - has done away with stories that may affect advertising, said a panellist. “You get calls from Nairobi or Paris, and stories are killed at that point.” Journalists in Kampala work under very different conditions to those outside the capital. When a journalist “up-country” was arrested, it took 24 hours before the newspaper’s lawyers reached him. “In that time he felt as if he had been abandoned because he was up-country. Up-country journalists face more constraints that force them to practice more self-censorship than urban journalists.” One panellist wondered if there was also positive self-censorship, giving the example of a newspaper deciding not to publish a photograph of a naked woman. “In the bigger picture, self-censorship is a bad thing”, another panellist explained. “It is about not publishing something out of fear. Concern around pornography is more to do with news judgement, ethics and responsibility. Journalists are avoiding or toning down newsworthy stories for fear of hurting someone or losing advertising, and that is self-censorship.” Scores: Individual scores: 1 Country does not meet indicator 2 Country meets only a few aspects of indicator 3 Country meets some aspects of indicator 4 Country meets most aspects of indicator 5 Country meets all aspects of the indicator Average score: 1.8 (2010: 2.0; 2007: 2.0) 4.6 Owners of established mainstream private media do not interfere with editorial independence. The consensus of the panel was that there is a lot of interference by owners. “We very openly get people from head office coming down here to breath down our senior editors’ necks to get them to tone down or do away with negative stories, because our owner also does business with government.” Meanwhile, many of those who own radio stations have an affiliation to the government. “The main purpose of them owning media outlets is not necessarily to disseminate news but to promote the ‘correct’ political line. The owners 66 AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER UGANDA 2012