Tuesday, June 9, 2009

The Mobile Phone is King of the Media

Ali Balunywa in Gulu, Uganda

Moses Akena is a freelance journalist who joined the Monitor early this year 2009. He is a graduate of Literature. The Monitor is Uganda’s other second daily newspaper. It is an independent daily founded by a group of journalists. Currently, it is owned by East Africa’s biggest media house, The Nation Group of Companies that publishes the biggest circulating newspaper in East Africa. It also owns radios and televisions in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.

The first thing he does in the morning is to send stories generated the previous day to Kampala. The deadline for upcountry stories is 10.00am. So stories that are collected after that are sent the next morning unless they are breaking news stories. 

Moses goes out in the field in search of news after mailing Kampala. Later in the day, he attends an editorial meeting chaired by the bureau chief. After the meeting, Moses types his stories. There is no network at the bureau offices, so stories are transferred using flash disks. Stories get peer review and then they are sent to the bureau chief before emailing them to Kampala.

Moses being a fresh graduate makes limited use of the New Media. He does not belong to any social networking site, does not blog, does not use a digital camera nor can he edit photos. However, he use the computer for typing in stories, editing, Googling and emailing.

He also constantly uses his mobile phone for receiving instructions, texting, interviewing and reporting. He thinks the mobile phone is the king of the media and the best tool that has revolutionized the media.

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