SECTOR 2 2.9 Media cover the full spectrum of economic, cultural, political, social, national and local perspectives and conduct investigative stories. The media do cover a diverse spectrum of issues, though some are covered better than others. With regards to economic stories, “there is an attempt to cover a range of topics, but adequacy is a different issue, and it depends on capacity.” Coverage is often limited because media houses might not have correspondents in the areas they wish to cover, and knowledge and capacity on economic issues may limit the depth with which stories are written. Additionally, economic stories are “not fully covered for vernacular papers and are not getting captured sufficiently.” “When it comes to regional and international news and how these affect local issues, the media do not cover this very well, except at budget time.” Panellists noted that depth is often lacking in this regard, though print media make stronger efforts to cover these topics in detail. Panellists also expressed concern with the ethics associated with covering the full spectrum of stories. One panellist noted that some papers have claimed to be able “to create a story in the newsroom and make up sources”. Another noted that some media houses simply source stories from other papers, copy them, translate and paste them as their own, without attributing the story to the real source. While some papers cover investigative stories, this comes with major challenges, and the quality of investigative journalism leaves much to be desired. “The issue is with skills, and then with retaining journalists. It takes time to train them, but then they move on to a different media house or they move on to more lucrative jobs in the corporate world, government agencies and NGOs.” Conducting investigative stories require additional time and resources which can become prohibitive; media houses also have to consider the safety of the journalist and the possibility of threats that may come with writing and publishing an investigative piece. On the whole, local content and perspectives are covered very well, and panellists pointed to New Vision as doing an exceptional job in this regard. Ugandan media have also strengthened their environmental reporting capacity, and this area has taken center stage; with some environmental journalists recently winning international prizes for their work. 44 AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER UGANDA 2016