Twenty years after the Windhoek Declaration on press freedom

How we started The Observer
By James Tumusiime
James Tumusiime is Managing
Editor/Director and founder of The
Observer
I was at Rhodes University in South
Africa in December 2003 when I
received email from colleagues at
my workplace, a daily newspaper in
Kampala, that our editor had been
fired.
He was a sharp-tongued but witty,
courageous and charismatic man
whose elevation had been welcomed
by those who knew his
qualities. However, <strong>the</strong> new owners
of this newspaper, who had only recently
acquired majority shareholding
from him and five o<strong>the</strong>r partners,
didn’t get along with him and
so he was given two days to get out.
I had been considering leaving my
job <strong>after</strong> completing my Master’s
degree, without really being sure
what I wanted to do next, but
this immediately gave me ideas. I
thought about <strong>the</strong> possibility of a
newspaper venture with my former
editor. Returning to Kampala later
that month, I swiftly met with
him and he confirmed that o<strong>the</strong>r
colleagues had contacted him about
<strong>the</strong> same idea.
A few meetings later, The Weekly
Observer was born, started by a
group of 10 journalists in pursuit of
Section 2: Pluralism
a greater challenge professionally
and business success. There was a
general feeling that with our skills
and experience we could champion
good quality journalism, and make
some money in <strong>the</strong> process. We
would stand for QUALITY and CRED-
IBILITY in journalism, as we sought
to promote good governance and
accountability at all levels of public
and private life.
We had no money, save for a little
cash to rent our office premises for
<strong>the</strong> initial three months, and also to
purchase a printer. One of <strong>the</strong> wellestablished
newspapers in Uganda
had agreed to a credit facility to print
a few initial editions of <strong>the</strong> paper. In
addition, individual partners were to
contribute whatever <strong>the</strong>y could, and
that is how chairs, computers and
desks were obtained. For <strong>the</strong> first
couple of months we sat on plastic
chairs.
“We would stand
for QUALITY and
CREDIBILITY in
journalism, as we
sought to promote
good governance and
accountability at all
levels of public and
private life.”
It now looks like we thought at <strong>the</strong>
time that a newspaper was just
about news. As journalists, all we
knew was to cover and report news
stories. But a newspaper is more
than just that. You must sell <strong>the</strong>
news that you report. You must sell
advertising space too.
Media in Africa - 2011 | 99