We believe information is power. But it can only be power if it is grounded in fact. Truthful, value-added information is a product that will always find consumers. At OJ-UGANDA.COM, we set high standards of adding value to content. Because we regard information as a product, we try to package it with user experience uppermost in our minds. We have used products that are poorly designed, and we know how frustrating that can be.
We ask a lot of questions about the quality of content OJ-UGANDA.COM publishes. We ask, for example, whether the reader will not struggle with the readability of a piece of writing and whether they will not have unanswered questions after reading it. We know the reader is not going to be with us when they are reading and will not be able to ask: “But what exactly do you mean by ‘upcoming’ artistes?” We look up words that are not commonly used to be certain we are using them properly. We do not rely on our memories for verification. That is the most reliable way of getting things wrong. We gafo (go and find out). You cannot go wrong when you gafo. Your memory about something that happened in 2015 can let you down, but gafo rarely does.
The best way we get the questions about the quality of our content answered is to work with a checklist.
Our editorial checklist has the following:
Accuracy: Before we hit the “publish” button, our first question is about accuracy. This is arguably the foremost journalistic principle. And it is what makes the business of gathering and disseminating information very challenging. Sometimes information you are confident is factual can turn out to be wrong. Sometimes the people you think are subject-matter experts may be relying on wrong or outdated information. Asking whether content you have prepared for publication is accurate is what makes you double check/cross check and verify. We obsessively verify our content. It can be tedious and time-consuming, but it is an integral part of the process of getting things correct. It is what sets us apart from non-professionals, charlatans—generally people who are journalists only in name and paper qualifications.
Attribution: We attribute information that is not common knowledge/information that is controversial/information some people may question. We do not have to tell you our source of information if we say, for example, that Africa has 54 countries. But if we say that 150 Ugandans have been deported from Qatar between 2021 and 2023, we have to cite the source of our information. We add hyper links to articles. By doing this, we are telling you how we know what we know, what we are sharing with you. You are entitled to this open, transparent way of gathering information. It builds our trust with you. It shows you we publish content we have researched and not anything that crosses our minds or guesswork.
Balance and Fairness: Sometimes stories we publish involve more than one person. Sometimes someone is alleging that X has done something seriously wrong. To ensure balance and fairness, we seek to hear from the person against whom allegations or accusations are being made. We tell them: “This is what we have heard from Y. What do you have to say?” If we write about the NRM government, for example, and we are highlighting its failings, we also have to look at the positive things it has done. Sometimes this is easier said than done. Some news organisations simply argue that if a government has been in power for far too long and has mucked up things, like the NRM, it does not deserve fairness. But OJ-UGANDA.COM is not those organisations and will always follow journalistic principles.
Coherence: Our content is varied, and we publish images, videos, etc. But where we have content in the form of articles, we have to ensure coherence, or the fact of having all the parts of something fitting together well. As we noted in preceding paragraphs, a piece of writing is a product that has to be used. We do not want readers consuming our content to say: “But this writer is not coherent. She started with demographics and has now wandered off into something unrelated to demographics.”
Context: We are in the business of informing you truthfully and in a professional manner. We need to ensure that our articles have information that creates a situation in which something happens and helps you to understand it. That is context.
Grammar: OJ-UGANDA.COM publishes in English. Our English has to be native-level in terms of fluency. Because of this, we adhere to grammatical rules, and things such as collocation, phrasing, syntax, subject-verb agreement, etc are taken extremely seriously at OJ-UGANDA.COM. Our content is written in such a way that if someone in majority English-speaking countries such as Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, the British overseas territories, Dominica, etc reads it, they can see it is published in impeccable English.
Punctuation: Punctuation (distinct from grammar) is the foundation of clear, clean writing. A comma, for example, in the wrong place can change the meaning of a sentence, and a poorly punctuated piece of writing looks like a white shirt with coffee marks. We pay great attention to punctuation and check every single sentence to ensure everything is as it should be. Consistency is key when we punctuate our written work. We have seen many local news outlets where every writer has their own punctuation style and punctuation marks, and the editors do not care. That is unacceptable at OJ-UGANDA.COM
Style Guide: We compiled a comprehensive style guide, or the handbook that contains rules on how we write and punctuate, and we follow it religiously. For readers who are not familiar with style guides and sometimes wonder why, for example, some media outlets use titles before people’s names while others do not, the answer is style guides. As the name suggests, they guide journalists when it comes to writing. Where style guides say you need a full stop/period—for example after “Mr”—you have to put a full stop/period.
Verification: This is at the bottom of our checklist, but it is by no means the least important. Verification is at the heart of what we do at OJ-UGANDA.COM You cannot talk of high-quality, factual information without verification. That would be a bit like starting a car without a battery. Verification at OJ-UGANDA.COM means we do not rely on one source of information. It also means that we question, double check/cross check what subject-matter experts are telling us, especially if it does not stand up to close scrutiny.
Our Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
Here is what sets OJ-UGANDA.COM apart from other Ugandan news and information websites.
1. OJ-UGANDA.COM’s founder and editorial director, Musaazi NAMITI, brings a deep understanding of journalistic principles and a proven commitment to high editorial standards given his previous experience with Al Jazeera in Doha, Qatar, where he worked as an editor for eight years. He has also worked as an editorial consultant for UN agencies and for Globe Media Asia in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. This international exposure equips OJ-UGANDA.COM with the tools to deliver high-quality journalism that meets the expectations of discerning news and information consumers—filling a critical gap in Uganda’s media landscape. While journalistic principles across newsrooms are supposed to be the same, many media start-ups in Uganda struggle to live up to high editorial standards. NAMITI’s international exposure equips OJ-UGANDA.COM with the tools to bridge this gap.
2. OJ-UGANDA.COM scrupulously verifies and fact-checks information it is gathering, right from spellings of people’s names and places. We ask people, for example, how they want their names spelled if there are variations of spellings on and offline. Sometimes we may be emotionally invested in what we verify/fact-check, but all we care about are facts. Wherever they go, we follow. We take a very scientific approach to verification. We are servants of the truth.
3. OJ-UGANDA.COM is very open about how it operates and how it ensures that the information it gathers and disseminates is accurate. We do not leave the public guessing/speculating about how we work. We believe that when we show readers how we operate, it gives them reasons to believe why they have to trust what we publish.
4. OJ-UGANDA.COM takes accountability extremely seriously. Many media start-ups and even well-established outlets make factual errors and just move on. No corrections, nothing. We do not pay lip service to our corrections policy. Whenever we make errors/mistakes, we acknowledge them. We do not take down content with factual errors. We publish a correction and tell you what we got wrong.
5. When OJ-UGANDA.COM publishes reader contributions, such as opinions, it works with contributors every step of the way to ensure that what is published is acceptable to both parties. We do not want unpleasant surprises. We share what we have edited with you before publication. We do not put words in writers’ mouths in the name of editing. As long as what you are writing about is based on fact, you should have a voice in your opinion article.
You must be logged in to post a comment.