Kampala — THEY say the surest route to failure is for one to try and please everybody. For a journalist especially, it is practically impossible to be in everyone's good books. However mild mannered or level-headed one is, stepping on a few toes is inevitable.

I have lost count of the number of verbal threats and hate mail that have been directed at me from musicians mostly, on account of the nature of my work. I have grown accustomed to such statements as: "What does that fool have? Without me, what will he write about?"

Recently, singer Gen. Mega Dee held his Akabadi album launch at Hotel Africana, widely described as the flop of the year. As a result, all the reviews which followed the concert were more of postmortem reports. But opinions being cheap, Mega Dee had his own.

The first victim of his differing view was fellow singer Red Banton, whom he expressly booted from his fledgling Afande Records music label, accusing him of exaggerating the extent of the flop.

The second victim was my colleague, Pidson Kareire, who wrote the concert's postmortem report. Mega Dee threatened to teach him a lesson on first sight. And is Pidson fazed? Well, I have not seen him cower in the newsroom and avoid social events where he is likely to bump into Mega Dee. Instead, he has vowed to not be intimidated by anybody who does not pay his rent.

During the course of my duties, I frequently find myself in hostile environments, with musicians taking time off to settle their personal scores in fist fights. On a positive note, I have never witnessed any such incidents involving a journalist, even though on a day to day basis, I hear musicians issuing threats to them.

The closest I came to seeing (or even being a part of) one such incident was in February this year when singer Bebe Cool was dragged to Mengo Magistrate's Court over a sh22m debt he owed a city money lending firm.

After he had deposited a cheque of sh2m, staked his Range Rover as collateral and agreed to settle the case out of court, he stormed out, looking "irritated" and pounced on a New Vision photojournalist, who was taking his pictures.

Bebe would be heard later, shamelessly bragging back stage that it was his way of appearing on the front page of a national daily.

So what is it about all the empty threats? To answer that, just picture this scenario: two pre-teen boys are playing with a ball in their backyard. One annoys the other, and a fist fight erupts. The weaker boy, unable to sustain a fight, takes to his heels, breaking in between to pick up ammunition to fight back.

He only stops when he reaches a safe zone, like a glass window for a backdrop, or a place with toddlers at play.

Standing before a glass background would automatically decapitate the opponent, since it would be too risky to go off target and shutter the neighbour's window.

Typically, that is a journalist for you. The fragile background is the entire media machinery, which no musician would rather dare cast missiles at.