Uganda, May 1 -- The Observer newspaper recently celebrated its twentieth anniversary, making it the second-longest running mainstream independent newspaper after the Monitor.

It is remarkable that the paper has been able to stay afloat for so long. It is also worth reflecting upon ahead of World Press Freedom Day tomorrow.

The journalists and editors that left the Monitor to found the Observer in early 2004 were only following a tradition that the founders of this newspaper, led by Wafula Oguttu, had themselves started when they left the Weekly Topic in 1992.

Three years later a batch of 10 younger, restless and ambitious journalists led by Onapito Ekomoloit did a 'Monitor' on the Monitor and left to start The Crusader, a plucky weekl...