Thank God we can get the news again! I was begining to get sick of New Vision.
coo This is a special issue of The Monitor. It’s the first since Government closed the paper down in a massive police and military intelligence operation. The security operatives didn’t have a warrant, and despite the threatening attitude of two CMI operatives, the gross intrusion and seizure of computers, mobile phones, and documents, the conduct of the police in particular was impeccable. It is also worth acknowledging that, except for the circulation section, the Government did not close down operations at the company’s Crown House offices that house, among others, Monitor FM on 93.3. Government was angered by a story in the Monitor issue of October stating that a UPDF helicopter gunship had crashed during action against rebels in the north. This matter is now a subject of court proceedings and the rules of sub-judice prohibit any comment that might prejudice the case. However, the episode was cause for concern for several reasons. First, the closure of the paper itself and, second, the massive force displayed were both unnecessary. Third, it constituted a violation of the cardinal principles of natural justice because the company was punished through loss of income; the arrest in Gulu by military officers of Mr. Frank Nyakairu, the reporter who wrote the story before his transfer to the police where he was held for longer than the constitutionally allowed period of 24 hours without being produced in court; the charge against him and two editors over the story; and the loss of income to the company and workers. One of the cardinal tests of a government in a democratic society ishow it handles the Press when it considers its reporting most offensive. Unless the Government had been refused a chance to put the record straight or refute The Monitor story this drastic action wasn’t necessary. The Monitor is a partnership of Kenyan, other international and Ugandan investors. Not even in their worst dreams did the non-Ugandan partners ever imagine that the present government would respond in the manner it did in its angriest moment. Many other investors must have thought the same way. Now all that has changed. But all isn’t lost. That it was possible to negotiate an end to the closure proves that a small window still exists to dialogue with Government. The Nation Media Group, which The Monitor is an integral part of, is guided by its time-tested editorial policy of independent, objective, accurate, Where issues of inaccuracy arise, we usually accept our mistakes. If we fail in any of the above, it is never for lack of trying or loss of faith in these values. \"Always be a first rate version of yourself instead of a second rate version of someone else.\" Njoki Paul University of Pretoria
