The viral video featuring three students from Nsangi Secondary School triggered predictable outrage across social media. In the clip, the young women role-play as entertainment pundits, declaring that veteran media figures—including Samson Kasumba, Sanyu Robinah Mweruka, Josephat Seguya, and Zahara Totto—are “old, over-served, and needed out of the media.” Under pressure, the school issued a public apology and promised disciplinary action. Yet this episode is far from a moral failure; it is a textbook lesson in the craft of modern media.
These students applied a fundamental truth that many seasoned practitioners overlook: attention is currency. By directly naming high-profile industry veterans, they guaranteed their message would be watched, shared, and debated across the country. That is not reckless disrespect—it is sharp audience strategy. In today’s noisy media environment, an unread or unwatched opinion does not exist. The Nsangi students demonstrated a clear grasp of this reality.
Legally and editorially, nothing in their video constitutes defamation. The students expressed a subjective opinion on age, media dominance, and cultural relevance.
While observers are free to disagree with their conclusions, turning a subjective commentary into grounds for school punishment and national hand-wringing is completely disproportionate.
Many of the loudest critics built their careers using the exact same playbook. Entertainment figures like Josephat Seguya and Zahara Totto have long thrived on pointed, aggressive, and sometimes ruthless commentary about musicians, actors, and politicians. Show hosts across Ugandan television routinely host free-wheeling segments that tear down public figures for sport. Demanding reverence and decorum the moment the lens turns on the commentators themselves exposes a blatant double standard.
A healthy press relies on the defense of uncomfortable commentary. The media industry cannot claim a permanent exemption from the critical eye it applies to everyone else. If adult presenters can publicly brand artists as “washed-up” or “irrelevant,” high school students practicing the same style of entertainment journalism cannot be singled out for applying those standards to media figures. The students simply reflected the sharp, personality-driven media culture they consume daily. Scolding the pupils while ignoring the media environment that produced them is hypocritical.
Beyond the ethics lies a practical reality: media requires constant renewal. Some broadcast programs and long-standing personas eventually go stale. Pointing out that legacy figures have dominated the airwaves for decades and advocating for new voices is not a personal attack—it is an accurate observation of market dynamics.
Younger talent brings new energy, fresh perspectives, and a willingness to challenge the status quo. Framing every call for generational transition as insolence only stagnates the industry.
Nsangi Secondary School’s initiative to encourage practical media projects should be commended, not walked back.
Practical exercises—recording, editing, and publishing—teach real-world skills that classroom theory cannot replicate. The proper institutional response to an edgy student project is editorial guidance on tone, evidence, and legal limits, not a panic-driven public apology. Young people testing boundaries will occasionally miss the mark; that is the nature of apprenticeship. The solution is better coaching, not public shaming that suppresses future initiative.
The Nsangi students created content that captured national attention, sparked debate, and drove conversation. That demonstrates the raw drive the media industry desperately needs. They did not invent confrontational journalism—they adopted it from the screens they watch every day. If their commentary made industry veterans uncomfortable, that discomfort is long overdue. It forces a necessary debate on equal standards, the boundaries of free commentary, and whether a media ecosystem built on criticism can handle being criticized.
Give these students constructive training and a round of applause—they have earned both.
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