Observer editor writes book

Titled, Writing People, Raising Issues, the book tips media practitioners and students on how to plan, report, and write outstanding features and analytical articles on issues of development and public affairs.

It was on launched on Thursday [6 December 2012] at Protea hotel in Kampala, by Dr Monica Chibita, head of the department of Mass Communication at the Mukono-based Uganda Christian University (UCU). Chibita is also the board chairperson of the African Center for Media Excellence (ACME), which has published the book, with funding from the Population Reference Bureau.

Dr Peter G Mwesige, the ACME executive director and one of the editors of the book, describes it as "inspiring" and urges journalists and journalism training institutions to make use of it. He says the book, is reader friendly and very useful especially for feature writers.

"The book will help journalists to bring life in storytelling especially on important but often boring and complicated development and humanitarian issues," said Mwesige, a former executive editor at Daily Monitor and a former head of the journalism department at Makerere University.

Mwesige added: "For a long time, we have been lacking local journalism literature based on local scenes and with local examples. I think Kavuma's book is a step to bridge this gap," he explained. He recommends the book as a must read, not only for media practitioners and training institutions but also for high school students, with a passion of joining media.

Now editor of The Observer, Kavuma has won several journalism awards, including the 2007 CNN MultiChoice African Journalist of the Year Award and 2006 United Nations Foundation Award for Development and Humanitarian coverage.

Making numbers count

Chibita also launched another handbook, Numbers and The News, which aims to help journalists conceptualize and interpret numbers in their reports. The handbook is authored by Mwesige. Both books are distributed by ACME.

Source: allAfrica