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Journalists create their own newspaper: The „Munyonyo Times“ is the result of a one week long KAS Media workshop „Advanced Political Reporting“ in Uganda. Sixteen print journalists took part in this course – and the creative product of their research is well done. They were split up into three groups and each group chose three main topics to illustrate ten pages for the online newspaper. A layouter and photographer assisted the group in their work.

In their newsrooms they debated how to tackle the stories, chose interview partners and meeting points for their news articles, analytical pieces and feature stories.

Thereafter the participants had one day to work in the field and another entire day to write their stories and debate them with the editor in the group. They wrote about the current situation of the Juba peace talks in the ongoing conflict between the LRA rebel group and the Ugandan government in the north of the country. They also looked into the opions of the population with regards to the controversial topic “homosexuality” and tackled the governement’s prosperity for all programme, which in reality does not reach many of the poor and disadvantaged people.

The practical approach of this course helped the participants to use their knowledge about style elements which was debated before in the theoretical part of the workshop. Tips how to ask the right questions in an interview were useful as well as a closer look and debate of the principals of balanced and critical reporting and the analysis of information within their political context.

At the end all participants agreed, that the practical exercise was a challenge worth their while. They learned how to better secure their sources and how to build a network of informants, how to structure the articles in a clear format and focus also on follow-up stories and use the media in this way as important platform for discussions among the readership.