products that could be launched in order to gain momentum, bringing advertizing and more listeners to their stations. The heated 2001 electoral campaign, which saw former president Museveni’s close ally, Kizza Besigye, run in the presidential election against him for the first time, also witnessed an upsurge of many new programs, including famous and controversial political editor Andrew Mwenda’s Andrew Mwenda Live on KFM, and Ekimeeza on Radio One. In the 2001 electoral context in particular, many radio journalists took their role as conveners of political debate seriously, and talk shows were a way for them to underline this.
This particular election also occurred at a moment when stations had gained in experience. Individual newspaper journalists and editors became talk show hosts or permanent panelists, which was an opportunity to enhance their status as political commentators and intellectuals, as well as to supplement their incomes. Insisting on their position as spokespersons of the “common people,” some talk show presenters took advantage of these platforms, sometimes assimilating their work with a religious calling to defend the “voiceless,”36 sometimes entering politics more actively by converting this media capital into a more traditional representative position and trying to get elected as MPs.37 Generally speaking, interactive talk radio helped radio journalists to enhance their status compared to political elites, as well as to acquire the self-confidence and credibility to counter politicians in intellectual arguments, acting as self-appointed representatives of the “voice of the people.”
As mentioned earlier, a few months after Radio One launched its Ekimeeza show, other stations followed: CBS produced Mambo Bado from a pub in Mengo;38 and Radio Simba created Simbawo Akatii (in Luganda, “Point of information!”) in another bar, in Kampala’s popular Nakulabye area. Eight other ebimeeza appeared in the capital city between 2004 and 2009. Most were tackling national political topics. As one of the producers explained: “Fundamentally, we take the same topic as those which made the front page during the week.”39 For example, in the corpus I gathered for Radio One’s Ekimeeza (sixty-three topics collected, from 2002 to 2008),40 the most-aired themes included: national policies and the political strategies of the executive, inter- and intraparty wrangles, peace negotiations in the North of the country, corruption, human rights, electoral reform, land reform, and more rarely public health (two topics on cholera and Ebola). Issues concerning the kingdom were quite rare (only once, on the fifteenth anniversary of the coronation of Mutebi II). In my sample, there was one topic on economics, and one about the management of the national football federation. Whatever the topic was, speakers quickly shifted the debate toward discussing the decisions and behavior of the state elites, and on making hypotheses about their strategies to get into or remain in office.
TABLE 2.1. Topics of Radio One’s Ekimeeza
Some topics were chosen for their potential to create a heated debate. Nevertheless, their wording also reveals the producers’ preoccupation with avoiding government confrontations. They encouraged a balanced analysis and tried to avoid simple partisan antagonisms. For example, in August 2008, right after several kingdom officials had been brutally arrested by security services, the topic of discussion in Club Obbligato was “The arrest of the Buganda Kingdom officials: What are the implications for the rule of law and lessons for Buganda?” By wording the topic this way, journalists encouraged using this episode as the basis for a more general reflection on what it is to respect the law, a recommendation that seemed to target both the authorities who did not respect the legislation on detention, and the kingdom officials who were accused of violating the constitution by engaging in politics. Generally, topics encouraged making an intellectual analysis.
FIGURE 2.1. Flyer showing Ekimeeza topic at Club Obbligato.
Talk Radio and Transnational Development
The advertizing market increased massively in the 2000s. Radio in urban areas became a profitable business: some Kampala-based stations were among the most important taxpayers in the country.41 The number of stations soon exploded. As of 2014, there were 257 radio stations officially registered at the Uganda Communications Commission.42 Stations have also mushroomed up-country. Nevertheless, the market and thus potential profits have been much smaller outside the capital city; the possibilities of relying on private advertizing have increased but are still limited.43
This market structure affected what could and could not be said on-air. Indeed, the politicization of the airwaves was even more difficult up-country than in the capital. Economic sustainability outside Kampala implied a different positioning toward the state, and also toward NGOs, which were both critical in supporting the local media economy by being the prime buyers of airtime. This financial dependency directly affected working practices. But beyond mere financial considerations, it is important to stress that working in collaboration (however unequally) with local government authorities and international donors was not always viewed negatively by media workers or felt as a constraint.
All this was very apparent on Radio Buddu, a private radio station in Masaka, a small town 150 kilometers west of Kampala in Buganda. It was created in 2001 by a businessman. A former manager recalled of the time when they launched the station,
The government projects that would bring projects like nutrition programs, health programs, even political programs presenting the agenda of the government—they were all at the district level. [. . .] These were the main sources for the radio—sources where we could get money. [. . .] Today [in 2008] the picture has changed, [but] when we went to Masaka [in 2001] there was little business. Masaka had been bombarded in 1979, most people had gone away because there was no business, and when AIDS came it affected the most productive people. [. . .] The town, by six o’clock, all the shops were closed. No one to buy. People were just farmers. [. . .] The only source of advertisement was government.44
Stations sold their airtime to local government agencies, NGOs, or local politicians. There were variations according to the region and the station, but generally, a one-hour talk show cost 1 million Ugandan shillings (around £250), in exchange for which the client could choose the topic of the show and even, in some cases, prepare the questions the presenter was going to ask. When I was in Masaka in 2008 and 2012, important clients included UNDP (United Nations Development Programme); USAID (US Agency for International Development); the National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS); the Rakai Counselors’ Association (RACA); and Masaka Microfinance Association. A presenter I interviewed estimated that four shows out of ten he hosted were bought.45 Of course, as producers told me, it was much more difficult to contradict someone who paid for airtime. Even in between shows, journalists hesitated before running a critical report on a state agency or an organization that was also a client of the station.46 A presenter noted:
Since this client has his or her money, and it’s money that will pay your salary, you don’t need to frustrate your client, because he will make reports to your bosses and they will question you! Sometimes you just have to put away the professionalism and then . . . go to his or her choices. You have to keep your job.47
More generally speaking, as another staff member noted, a show can be much more “political [. . .] when it’s sponsored by Pepsi than when it’s bought by an NGO.”48 In this configuration, the presenter could hope that calls from listeners would provide a contradiction in a situation in which he himself did not feel at ease to do so for fear of retaliation.49
Configurations varied according to the politics and history of the region. In Northern Uganda for instance, the local economy has been particularly impacted by the presence of international NGOs. Mega FM is based in Gulu, the main urban center in the North. It is owned by the government, although it was
