[kictanet] Media Institute on Recent Media furore

[Brian Longwe]

The price of negligence and incompetence  [image:
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 OUR
VIEW

While the Media Institute condemns the outrageous selfishness exhibited by
Members of Parliament in passing what is clearly a retrogressive law, the
media must not escape culpability for what has befallen it. It has become
norm for the media to cry wolf when faced with any encroachment on its turf,
especially its own welfare.

In fact, in the public domain, the strident wailing of the media has become
all too familiar and sympathy is waning. And why not; there are many sectors
of our society whose cry for attention when their welfare is similarly
threatened by government action or legislation hardly get a fraction of the
interest the media devotes to its own selfish interests. Truth be told, the
media is insensitive and uncaring most of the time.

And it gets worse. The media are not even competent in superintending over
their own matters either because they are out of depth, they cant fathom the
implications of some developments - such as the just enacted Bill - or they
are just consumed by their pursuit of profit and basic competition to
comprehend the threats to their survival or operations.  That cannot be said
of the ICT sector, which too is the subject of the same Communications
Amendment Bill 2008, but which has had its issues discussed and thrashed out
in numerous online lists and discussion forums.

Not surprisingly, some media chiefs only came to grips with the implications
of the Bill when it had sailed through the First Reading in Parliament a
month ago. They long left the job of minding the rights enjoyed by the media
almost exclusively to non-governmental organisations that the media cares
less about.

Consider this:  A fortnight before the Bill went to the Third and final
phase in the House, an alarmed International Commission of Jurists (Kenya)
called a meeting to sensitize the media about the impending law.  And when
they turned up, some of the media chiefs not only knew zilch about the Bill
but what they did after that was even more scandalous. All of them were
unavailable for the action proposed to forestall the passage of the law.
Even when a press conference was called to raise the alarm, all of them were
either busy or conveniently absent.

Rather than mobilize the sector, they retreated to their usual boardrooms
and adopted the ineffective strategy of molly-coddling MPs, ministry of
information officials and other emissaries through informal methods to drop
selective clauses deemed to be threatening to commercial interests
(principally, the prohibition of cross-ownership). The media did not even
give adequate publicity to the Bill prior to the brouhaha, let alone the
other aspects relating to ICT.  Needless to say, we failed spectacularly and
now we are back in our regular dark pit of moaning.

What was a clear case of an attempt to abridge freedom of speech was
conveniently couched in terms of commercial interests, protection of
frequencies, turfs,  and so forth. The reporting of the aftermath itself has
been terribly wanting. The Communications Bill has all of a sudden become
ICT Bill, Media Bill, and other names we have baptised it. How is the public
to keep track of our lamentations?

In our bid to attract sympathy, ok appeal, to the public, we have also
pressed the sensational button, and the inaccuracies are staggering. For
one, the offending Sect. 88 was not introduced by the new Bill. It is
already in the existing Communications Act and what was on the table was
whether to repeal it. That of course, is clouding issues and confusing the
bigger picture.

At stake is an attempt by the political class to equip itself with the
ammunition to circumscribe the fundamental freedom of expression, and arm
itself with the ammunition to control the media if it is deemed as
unbecoming or threatening to its interests, diverse as they may be. In this
regard one cant help but sympathise with the wing of the coalition that is
always crying about being shortchanged in the power sharing deal - of what
benefit is this new law to the objective of freedom of information in this
country?

Yes, to be candid, the media is far from innocent. Some of the vulgar
content on the airwaves at supposedly neutral hours should not be allowed.
Yes, on their own they have demonstrated utter irresponsibility in setting
standard thanks to the greed for profit.  But to sit and wait for government
to legislate their content is perhaps the worst demonstration of lack of
leadership among the media management.

While the Media Institute joins others in appealing to the Head of State to
demonstrate statesmanship and respect for democracy by not assenting to the
law, it must be observed that the media has overspent its goodwill and
earned its just fruits.

Our hope is that the President will not be motivated by short-term parochial
interests to endorse a bad law. The Bill clearly impinges on freedom of
expression and the media, which are democratic principles that he and other
leaders have professed to respect. To turn around and begin to claw back on
that at a time when the country is on the democratic assent and awaits
proper constitutional reform will be both anachronistic and an undeserving
of his legacy.
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