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This was not the music or film awards; but the media awards. Though the presentation of the accolades and 5-star hotel venue plus the cocktail affair gave the occasion a touch of showbiz. This time it was the reporters in the spotlight.

The fourth Annual Uganda Investigative Journalism Awards 2008, which were held on 24 May 2008 in Kampala, only served to show that female journalists can hold their own against their male colleagues. This goes against the common perception that women scribes are always lagging behind the men, especially in the often challenging arena of investigative journalism, preferring to go to what are termed as ‘soft issues’.

Looking at the 65 journalists who were nominated, 6 females got awards out of 13 who entered the competition while 8 men were awarded out of 52 who participated. In the overall winners category, though beaten by a male, Simon Kasyate of Nation TV (NTV), the first and second runners up were female, Leylah Ndinda of Wavah Broadcasting Corporation (WBS) and Barbara Among of The New Vision newspaper respectively.

Compared to last year where no female participated, this year female journalists were encouraged to take part in the competition and carried the day. In terms of percentages, 46.2% of the females who took part won, at least, an award while it is 15.3% for the males. However, of the total who submitted entries, 20% were female while 80% were males.


“The disparity of women in media should be narrowed,” said Birgitte Markussen, Deputy Danish Ambassador, who was the Guest of Honour. Adding that there was need for more entries from women, she asked female journalists to take a more active role in making the media in Uganda free and independent.

“This is not a male battle, but also female battle in making the media free and independent,” she said, “Media needs to step up its game. It should play a bigger role in shaping peoples’ attitudes.”

Each of the winners in the different regions got a plaque and a 360-hour digital voice recorder, the top three got a plaque, laptop and a digital camera each. In addition to that, the overall winner got a four-week journalism course in Denmark from October to November 2008.

The awards, launched in 2005, are to commemorate the World Press Freedom Day in Uganda. It aims at raising the profile and frequency of investigative journalism in the country, in the areas of corruption, human rights and rule of law, peace and conflict reporting. However, this year, the awards did not coincide with the World Press Day on 3^rd May because of financial constraints.

The awards were organised by East African Media Institute, with a panel of judges constituted from Makerere University’s Department of Mass Communication, under the auspices of Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) and Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD).

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*Barbara Among fell in love with journalism as a journalism student at Makerere University where she was a News Editor for Masscom Online—a students’ newspaper. After graduation in 2006, she worked with for a weekly newspaper, The East Africa as a reporter. Early this year, she moved to The New Vision.

Her entry to the UIJA was about the oil exploration in Uganda. She highlights the intricacies of how deals or contracts in this sector are awarded.

*Leylah Ndinda first appeared in the Ugandan media less than three years ago. Working for WBS, she has been engaged in reporting and, currently, she is a producer of the Kiswahili news bulletin. Her story shaded light on night prostitution on Kampala streets by posing as a prostitute.

*Simon Kasyate joined journalism as a passion. He started with ‘Teens Club’ on WBS then later joined The Daily Monitor as a reporter and then to NTV. His winning story was titled ‘Picking up Pieces’ on the return of the persons, internally displaced by Northern Uganda war, to their homes.