One would wonder what would be the essence of knowing the right order to read a newspaper. It can seem like one of those things which you can naturally do. The idea would be, provided you can read everything in the paper, then that is all that really matters. But there is a technique to reading the paper, particularly the front page, that helps you understand what is inside.

When early newspapers first began circulating centuries ago, headlines didn’t exist at all. Readers were handed dense blocks of text and expected to read straight through with zero guiding signposts. But over time, journalism evolved.

Today, there is a deliberate technique to reading the paper—particularly the front page—that acts as a map, helping you understand what is inside before you even dive into the paragraphs.

To crown the 2026 MUBS Library Week, students from different faculties took part in a reading competition with the purpose of sharpening their skills. As can be seen in the featured image where Opolot Justine from the Faculty of Business Administration took the floor, the challenge for the first round was to read a newspaper front page. Seems easy, right? Well, you can find out at the end of this piece. Lets use the front page of the NewVision of 5^th October, 2026 attached below.

You start by establishing who is speaking and when. On this page, that’s the iconic “New Vision” logo and the date, Monday, October 5, 2026. The last thing you would want to do is get engrossed with a paper that ran out of date. For students, this technique of checking your anchors first is just as crucial in academic settings—like scanning a paper’s instructions, title, and author before diving blindly into the body text.

Once time and identity are established, the eye should be immediately drawn to the heaviest, boldest visual weight on the page—the primary story: “DISTRICTS GET EXTRA BILLIONS”, preceded by its overarching category context (“Government says new funding model to improve planning”). This is the biggest story that ought to get your mind thinking about public resource allocation. A headline of that magnitude is anchoring the entire daily conversation of the nation. For a student on stage, recognizing that weight means pausing, letting the gravity of the words land, and delivering them with intentionality rather than racing through them.

Next, you look at the primary photograph anchoring that main story—in this case, the large group photo showing the teachers returning from their study trip, supported by the caption bar at the bottom: “Best teachers return from Ireland study trip…”. At times, this visual story is different from the main headline, but for it to also feature on the front page is to give it due attention. And when talking about teachers’ success, this is a positive story and therefore a touch of positive energy—not too excessive—wins over for a student on a stage.

Finally, you scan the perimeter columns for secondary stories and briefs, such as the Jobs panel on the top right and the NRM Caucus, Tournament, and Education briefs on the right. In the flow of the front page, these are also crucial, but there is a reason why they are in a small font. They are the secondary stories to look out for in this case.

Six faculties took part in this competition: Commerce, Vocational and Distance Learning, Business Administration, Management, Marketing, and Computing. For round one, participants showed remarkable confidence, though some stumbled on the correct reading order of the paper.

Mastering the front page is about training your mind to look past the clutter, and find the core context as you begin to read.

Special thanks goes to Mr. David Ochari, the visionary behind the Library week and the entire Library team for good coordination and we look forward to the event next year. We also extend our sincere appreciation to our fellow judges on the panel: Senior Lecturer Nambalirwa Hamidah, Guild Deputy Education Minister Joel Mugerwa, and the Chairperson of the Judges Panel, Dr. Alice Arinaitwe. And this was all made seamless by the graceful moderation of Dr. Abeja Martha.

We look forward to an even greater event next year.

Click on this link to find out the individual speaker feedback from round one.