[kictanet] Media Bill

[bitange at jambo.co.ke]

Dear All,
I feel compelled to respond to Kanja's surprising response to the Media
Bill. Media especially MOA has decided to distort information with blatant
disregard of a journalist's cardinal rule (objectivity) to poison the
People of Kenya with lies and propaganda;

Here are the Facts
.
•The Bill was drafted by stakeholders among then Kanja himself;
•The content especially on the code of conduct for journalist were 
transposed from the current code of conduct with the Media Council;
•	All stakeholders were kept informed throughout the stages of the Bill
and Kanja as the former Chair of MOA received letters informing him of the
progress;
•	The Bill does not seek to control, it simply gives some teeth to the
Media council to regulate professional journalists;
•	Regulation is not control (think, we all are free to drive but we must
drive on the left hand side);
•	Without regulation you have quacks as journalists who may plunge the
country into chaos (just listen to Venacular FM stations to understand why
we need professionalism in Journalism and remember what happened with Hope
FM);
•	The controversy in the Bill arises from funding.  MOA and KUJ did not
want to fund the Advisory Board and the Media Council instead they asked
the Government to finance; and
•	Government funding comes with certain strings as you all understand and
even if you were to fund you will expect the recipient to adhere to
certain rules (we have gone through this with the World Bank even though
we did not like it).


Bitange Ndemo




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