Employees at Next Media are on tenterhooks after senior managers told them they risk losing their jobs for allegedly leaking internal information to Bbeg Media.
Sources at Naguru have told Bbeg Media that over the last three days, management has held two meetings, concerned that key internal decisions are being leaked to the news website, started by former staff.
In one meeting, Kin Kariisa, the chief executive officer of Next Media, told staff that they would face repercussions including being sacked if they are caught leaking any information to Bbeg Media.
“We just discuss something and, in a few minutes, it is on Bbeg Media. Who is the mole inside here?” Kariisa asked in a meeting of senior managers.
One of the leaked stories that has angered Kariisa, we have been told, was the suspension of senior talk show host, Simon Kaggwa Njala at the end of June.
Sources told us that it had been agreed that the suspension be kept confidential from the public and instead be portrayed as some sort of “leave.”
But Bbeg Media somehow got hold of it.
Yesterday in an hour-long editorial meeting, news managers reiterated Kariisa’s words.
“They threatened to suspend those they suspect to be in contact with some of the people at Bbeg Media,” a source told us.
Over the past couple of months, Bbeg Media has ferociously covered the media landscape, highlighting the challenges that journalists in several media organizations face.
We have written about the restructuring of the Nation Media operations in Uganda and how it has have caused jitters among staff. Bbeg Media has reported about the bed bug problem at Vision Group showing how it has affected staff productivity.
We have written about the delayed payment of staff at Baba TV and the discontent it has caused. Bbeg Media has also evaluated management policies at Next Media and how they have impacted on staff morale.
Our coverage has understandably angered many senior managers at these organizations who are not used to being heavily scrutinized.
