Despite poor pay, Journalists must remain professional – Baryomunsi

The Minister of ICT and National Guidance, Chris Baryomunsi, says journalists ought to remain ethical and professional at all times despite working under unpleasant conditions.

Baryomunsi was on Saturday responding to the concern of poor remuneration raised the Mathias Rukundo, the President of Uganda Journalists Association (UJA), at the closure of the journalists’ 5-day Residential Symposium on Socio-economic transformation at Kyambogo University grounds.

The Minister cautioned the media practitioners to remain ethical and professional despite the unpleasant working conditions.

“We need patriotic journalists in Uganda so that when we report, we don’t report to damage our country but to build it. You should appreciate that you are Ugandans and that you should report positively. Despite the poor pay, let us remain professional and ethical,” Dr Baryomunsi said.

He however acknowledged that majority of the journalists are employed by private media practitioners and the government is engaging the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) to see how they can address the concerns of journalists.

Journalists are supposed to be part of the Fourth Estate, watchdogs of democracy and the rule of law, opinion-makers or gate-keepers, but little is known about their working conditions.

Many journalists in Uganda face difficult labour conditions, are poorly remunerated, with many of them only able to make it to live the next day.

While salaries in a few leading media are relatively good, employment opportunities for young reporters are few and those who find jobs are usually volunteers surviving on handouts from the field.

Low salaries and poor working conditions have pushed female journalists into white collar prostitution to supplement their income.

Indeed, such salaries in the private media have contributed to the downfall of professionalism in the journalism fraternity as calls for remedial measures increase.

In some cases, journalists are not entitled to company transport when fetching stories in the field, they survive on transport money from sources.

In recent years, journalists have increasingly competed to impress politicians who offer them jobs in government as well as tokens.