Uganda faces the impacts of climate change, including erratic rainfall, prolonged droughts, flooding, mudslides, and rising temperatures. These changes are not just environmental; they affect livelihoods, food security, and public health. In this context, the media plays a critical role in shaping how citizens understand and respond to climate change.
The African Centre for Media Excellence (ACME), with support from the Climate Smart Jobs (CSJ), has published a new report, Ugandan Media Coverage of Climate Change (2024–2025), which examines how the country’s media is reporting on one of the most urgent public-interest issues of our time. The study is based on a quantitative content analysis of climate change coverage across four major news outlets: New Vision, Daily Monitor, Bukedde, and Uganda Radio Network (URN)—over seven months.
The findings point to both progress and persistent gaps in climate reporting.
A total of 191 climate-related stories were identified during the study period, with coverage largely concentrated in English-language outlets: New Vision (42.4%) and Daily Monitor (38.2%), while the leading vernacular newspaper, Bukedde, accounted for just 5.2%. This imbalance suggests that critical climate information may not be reaching audiences most vulnerable to its impacts.
The study also finds that climate change is still not treated as a high-priority issue in editorial decision-making, with over 90% of stories published beyond page five and none appearing on the front page. Coverage is heavily dominated by straight news (62.3%) and event-driven reporting, with limited investment in in-depth, enterprise, or investigative journalism—only one investigative story (0.7%) was identified.
In terms of content, reporting tends to focus more on climate mitigation (49.2%) than on adaptation (30.9%), which may limit public understanding of practical responses to climate impacts at community level. Additionally, sourcing remains uneven, with women accounting for only 29.1% of voices quoted, reflecting broader structural and newsroom biases.
At the same time, the report highlights encouraging practices, including the use of contextual background information in most stories and a growing diversity of sources, including ordinary citizens, civil society actors, and local government officials.
Overall, the findings point to a media landscape that is still largely reactive, with coverage driven mainly by events such as conferences and official activities rather than sustained, issue-led reporting. This limits the media’s ability to deepen public understanding, influence policy debate, and support meaningful climate action.
The report makes several recommendations to strengthen climate journalism in Uganda, including:
- Expanding coverage in local language and community media
- Integrating climate change into broader beats such as health, agriculture, and governance
- Addressing gender imbalance in sourcing
- Investing in climate desks and specialised reporting capacity
- Promoting enterprise and investigative journalism
As Uganda continues to face mounting climate risks, strengthening media coverage will be essential to ensuring that citizens are informed, engaged, and able to respond.
Read and download the full report below.
