[kictanet] [ke-internetusers] Kenya communications (amendment) Bill: Is media overacting?

[Brian Longwe]

I too, feel that this is overreaction and misrepresentation by the media.
How many of the very vocal media personalities who appeared protesting have
even read the proposed legislation? If they did, they would see that the
powers granted are only applicable during a state of emergency. Other laws
set out the process and conditions by which a state of emergency can be
called.

Our experiences with the post-election crisis this year exposed how partisan
and instrumental media can be to fuel discontent and in many cases, media
related information was used to take lives.

Have the more responsible media houses forgotten so quickly the regret and
guilt they expressed, when they started crying out for peace - after they
realised how seriously wrong their transmissions were taken by the public?

It is true that when Govt invited stakeholders to make representations
regarding the bill, the media houses that bothered to send personnel sent
only very junior officials - there's no knowing what kind of
feedback/representations these underlings took back to their bosses.

How many media houses sent representations to the house committee that was
responsible for the bill when they were invited to do so? To what extent did
they engage with informed contributions, proposed modifications or even
proposed text to replace the offending sections?

People need to realise that things like this don't happen overnight,
law-making is a process that provides any citizen with the right and the
opportunity to make their views felt and known. The masses that have been
mobilised by the media houses should have been in Mombasa when govt, the
house committee and stakeholders were meeting to among other things look at
sections of the Kenya communications amendment act - not now, when their
elected representatives have yielded to the due process and submitted the
bill to the President.

my two-pence,

Brian

On 12/13/08, Grace Bomu <nmutungu at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I had signed up for the mars group protest yesterday on the
> representation that it was a protest on food prices and MP'S refusal
> to pay taxes.
> I am disgusted that the media have used our voices for their causes
> exclusively, disregarding ours.
> As a Kenyan, i think there should be a review on cross-ownership of
> media if democracy is to thrive. Also, considering the role of the
> media in fueling ethnic/ regional backlash since 2003,  isn't there
> need for a check on them?
> There may be misgivings on the arbitraly powers conferred to the
> Minister in charge of security but media has to be checked.
> The media should give suggestions on alternative ways to check them
> instead of using all their airtime and acres of newspapers to win
> public sympathy.
> Finally, they should stop branding it ' media bill' as the bill is not
> a conspiracy against media but a bill to amend the communications act.
>
> --
> Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com
>
> Grace L.N. Mutung'u
> +254721898732
> +254736091242
>   Kenya
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-- 
Brian Munyao Longwe
e-mail: blongwe at gmail.com
cell:  + 254 722 518 744
blog : http://zinjlog.blogspot.com
meta-blog: http://mashilingi.blogspot.com
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