[kictanet] New law forces media to reveal sources

[Mike Theuri]

Such laws are often difficult to overturn once enacted. It may take the
arrest and possible jail time for a brave journalist unwilling to sacrifice
his sources for the law to be challenged on constitutional grounds. But
how many journalists are prepared to take this risk? The law in itself
is rather flawed at face value and does not take into account any exceptions
for protecting the identity of sources. For instance take the scenario of an

otherwise guilty party filing a meritless lawsuit so as to establish the
idenity of a source so that the source can be 'fixed'. Shouldn't the law
protect sources where the facts are true and not as a result of
irresponsible journalism.

It was encouraging to see The Standard appeal to the President and I
hope that other sections of the media and society at large will impress
on the President to send the bill back to Parliament.

http://www.eastandard.net/hm_news/news.php?articleid=1143972356

"Wanyagah warned Kenyans that future generations may question why such a bad
law was passed without protests and urged forces of goodwill to join the
media in seeking amendments before it is enacted as law"

The Nation was not to be left behind either:

http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=24&newsid=103744
In most cases, people provide important information to journalists and
demand not to be named. That is how Kenyans got to know about Goldenberg,
Anglo Leasing and other instances of high-level corruption. The amendment
will make news sources shun journalists, thereby allowing many wrong things
to continue unchecked.



On 8/3/07, Alex Gakuru <alex.gakuru at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >From now on, would you trust Kenya media with any
> confidential corruption story, especially if you were
> in the civil service? or expect Editors to even touch
> let alone fearlessly publish corruption reports when
> they will have to name their sources. Who will now
> dare accuse a minister of graft? In short, "You
> Kenyans shut up and let us eat".
>
> Loss of business for local media houses and we revive
> your old shortwave radio. You will need it henceforth
> to tune in to BBC, VOA, etc for breaking news on
> Kenya?
>
> But then again, one can always publish in foreign
> newspapers that protect their sources and on websites.
> At least for the time being before another internet
> censorship and PCs confiscation law is passed.
>
> Don't you love Kenya? Have fun with whistle blower
> protection program joke...
>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/pipermail/kictanet/attachments/20070803/843b7429/attachment.htm>