Last Sunday, Monitor Publications Limited, the Namuwongo-based company that publishes the Daily Monitor, announced it had phased out its Sunday edition. The reasons the company cited did not include flagging sales or the high cost of distributing the paper.
But media watchers speculated that MPL was following in the footsteps of Vision Group, which has posted losses for four consecutive years and phased out Sunday Vision in 2024 to cut costs.
What MPL has done would have been almost unthinkable 20 years ago. The future of newspapers did not look very bleak. And, crucially, the Monitor, as it was called when it launched in July 1992, had gone from one edition to three, then seven.
Coming out every day seemed like the natural culmination of a confident climb that was never going to look back.
But the passage of time sometimes changes things and people in ways that are hard to believe. The Daily Monitor will now produce only six editions. And no one knows for sure what will happen to the Weekend Monitor, which has replaced the Sunday Monitor, if it does not perform well.
Yet for all its ups and downs, the Daily Monitor remains the most visible, most trusted news outlet in Uganda—not only by Ugandans but also by the diplomatic community and Uganda’s development partners. Of roughly 40 newspapers launched after it, only the Sunrise and the Observer are still standing; the rest have folded.
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The paper has weathered many storms, some triggered by its bold resolve to speak truth to power when other media outlets have chosen to censor themselves or to kowtow to the ruling elite.
In May 1999, it published a photo, reportedly taken in Gulu army barracks, that appeared to show soldiers shaving the pubic hair of a naked woman with scissors—proof that men in uniform are sometimes only a pair of scissors away from gross human rights violations.
The government, then fighting rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army led by Joseph Kony, responded by charging the senior editors with sedition. Wafula Oguttu, the editor-in-chief at the time, was charged with two other senior editors: David Ouma Balikowa and Charles Onyango-Obbo.
The state said the photo was likely to cause fear and alarm to the public or disturb the peace.
To their credit, the Daily Monitor journalists put up a spirited legal fight against the sedition law, and in a landmark ruling in August 2010 (pdf), the Constitutional Court ordered its removal from the Penal Code.
In October 2002, the Daily Monitor grabbed the headlines yet again after its story about a helicopter it said had been shot down by the LRA rebels triggered a raid by security forces on the paper’s newsroom. They ransacked it and occupied the premises, forcing the paper to stop publication for a week.
Eleven years later, history repeated itself when security forces stormed the Daily Monitor offices after the newspaper published a story about claims by former intelligence chief Gen David Tinyefuza alleging a plot to assassinate opponents of a plan to have army chief Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba succeed his father, President Yoweri Museveni.
The Daily Monitor’s newsroom and its sister radio station, KFM, remained closed for days. Gen Tinyefuza fled to the UK but later returned and was eventually allowed to retire—after having been blocked from resigning since November 1996.
The state has been far from friendly. President Museveni called the Daily Monitor an enemy paper. At a ceremony to mark Uganda’s 60th independence anniversary in 2022, he railed against the paper in the presence of visiting presidents.
His government once banned government departments from advertising in the Daily Monitor. While the New Vision hogged all adverts from government agencies and departments, the Daily Monitor had to make do with copy sales and adverts from privately-owned companies until the ban was lifted.
Six reasons you should trust what you read on this website—and share it with confidence
1. Led by experience that travels well
Our founder and editorial director, Musaazi NAMITI, brings more than two decades of serious newsroom experience, including eight years as an editor at Al Jazeera in Doha, Qatar, and consulting for the African Development Bank, UN agencies and Globe Media Asia in Cambodia. His global exposure anchors OJ-UGANDA.COM in professional rigour and fairness—standards that too often slip in Uganda’s crowded media space.
2. We fact-check with scientific precision
Verification is NOT a box we tick; it is how we bring journalism to life. We confirm spellings, dates, figures, places—every detail that shapes a story. If a fact looks shaky, we pause and probe. Emotion does not lead us; evidence does.
3. We are a legal entity and are fully registered
OJ-UGANDA.COM is a company registered with the Uganda Registration Services Bureau. Our registration number is: 80034266163714
4. Radical transparency in how we work
We do not hide behind mystery. We show readers how information is gathered, verified and edited. You will always understand why we stand by a story—because we will let you in on the process.
5. Accountability you can see
When we err, we do not sweep it under the carpet/rug. Our corrections policy ensures every error is corrected immediately, with a clear note explaining what went wrong and what has been fixed. No quiet deletions. No half-truths.
6. Fair treatment for contributors
If you write for us, your ideas remain yours. We refine, not usurp. We share every edited version before publication, and we publish only work that is fact-based and mutually agreed upon. Your voice stays authentic—and honest.
🔴We run a clean, professional news site that prioritises editorial quality and draws readers’ attention to what matters.
Partly because of its lion’s share of advertising revenue, the New Vision, for nearly 10 years, was able to send senior journalists to the Thomson Foundation’s Editorial Centre in Cardiff, Wales, for a three-month journalism course. Two of those journalists, Joachim Buwembo and Jerome Mukasa, later worked for the Daily Monitor.
The Daily Monitor also saw a major staff exodus in November 1995 when 10 senior journalists quit the paper over working conditions to launch the Crusader, a weekly that collapsed in April 1999.
They were led by Onapito-Ekomoloit (deceased). Others were Peter Gizzard Mwesige, Simwogerere Kyazze, Vukoni Lupa Lasaga, Richard Tusiime (Red Pepper founder), Hamis Kaheru, Laura Mulenga, Martin Lutalo-Mpungu, Dismas Nkunda and Sarah Mirembe.
It has been something of a rollercoaster ride for a paper that did not have a proper newsroom when it started, moved to Dewinton Road after making some money and secured a permanent home in Namuwongo—all before being bought by the Nairobi-based Nation Media Group.
Three of the Daily Monitor’s founders, Richard Tebere, Kevin Aliro and Teddy Ssezi-Cheeye, have since passed on. But the story of Uganda’s media industry cannot be complete without the Daily Monitor.
DISCLOSURE: The author writes a column for NMG’s Weekend Monitor in Kampala as an independent contractor.
🔴 Musaazi Namiti is the Founder and Editorial Director of OJ-UGANDA. He previously led the Africa Desk at Al Jazeera in Doha, Qatar, worked for Globe Media Asia in Cambodia and writes a widely read column for Uganda’s Sunday Monitor. His work has been quoted by The New York Times, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Jeune Afrique, The Africa Report—not for playing it safe, but for saying what others will not.
