[kictanet] Kenya: The Media is Not Innocent

[Alex Gakuru]

Dorcas you are right but I also agree with Kanja's
call that we be more thorough on this issue.
Otherwise, a superficial framing of this subject risks
just burying the causes deeper as we re-assume our
"traditional" respective points of views. 

I attended the meeting from where this thread was
reported. And, incidentally "summary impressions"
created by the mass media of quite detailed
deliberations was a subject with well researched
"backgrounders" urged. I hope the organisers could
share the entire workshop report when its ready.  

To the list perhaps also add;

- What role did various opinion pollsters play? Did
they pour petrol all over Kenya then left? Motives...
   
- What about new media? (email, attachments, internet,
blogs, sms...)

- What mechanisms exist that integrate info-consumers
opinions? i.e. gauge media houses "one-wayness" vs.
audience/citizens participation in shaping unfolding
political subjects

- Post crisis; what did various media not/do?
- What did we FAIL to do?-individually and
collectively 

Regards,

Alex 
  
--- Kanja Waruru <kanjawaruru at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> Please allow me to comment on this matter and
> apologize for dragging you back to an issue that had
> been posted and quickly dismissed.
> 
> The media did not operate in isolation during and
> after the elections. And before we point fingers at
> the media and blame it for everything under the sun,
> perhaps we should first try to understand who the
> real
> players were in the elections and the general
> genesis
> of the crises. And in doing so we may need to ask
> ourselves these questions.
> 
> What role did politicians play in this crises? 
> What about the churches and mosques?  
> What about the security forces? 
> What about the Electoral Commission?
> And finally what role did the media play?  
> 
> My view is that we need to have a task force as
> suggested by the minister of information probably
> under the media council of Kenya to audit all these
> players, only then can we truly say who was innocent
> and who was guilty.
> 
> But i would also like to bring in another issue.
> During the elections the media was exercising the
> self
> regulation rule and a lot of the stories that were
> filed during this period were censored because they
> were hate speeches and issues not fit for printing
> but
> we thought it would all die out after the elections
> and things would also get back to normal.
> 
> Now on hindsight we ask ourselves should we have
> censored those stories or should we have reported
> them
> as presented? 
> 
> i will be happy to hear your views the above.
> cheers.
> Kanja 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --- alice <alice at apc.org> wrote:
> 
> >
> http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=41049
> > 
> > KENYA:
> > The Media Is Not Innocent
> > Kwamboka Oyaro
> > 
> > *NAIROBI, Feb 2 (IPS) - The media was partly
> blamed
> > for the Rwandan 
> > genocide 14 years ago which left nearly one
> million
> > people dead in 100 
> > days. "Kill the Inkotanyi [cockroaches]!" a local
> > radio station urged 
> > its listeners at the time. *
> > 
> > "30 Days in Words and Pictures: Media Response in
> > Kenya During the 
> > Election Crisis" -- a workshop organised here last
> > week by 
> > California-based media advocacy group Internews --
> > enabled media 
> > professionals to conduct a "self-audit" of the
> role
> > local media played 
> > in the post-election violence. The audit revealed
> > that media -- 
> > especially vernacular radio stations -- might be
> > partly to blame for the 
> > on-going violence sparked off by the announcement
> of
> > Mwai Kibaki as 
> > winner of the Dec. 27 elections.
> > 
> > The violence has reportedly claimed over 1,000
> lives
> > and displaced some 
> > 250,000 people since the December election.
> > 
> > David Ochami, a commissioner with the Media
> Council
> > of Kenya, told IPS 
> > that long before the elections were held,
> vernacular
> > radio stations had 
> > ignited ethnic consciousness among the listeners
> > "making them support 
> > leaders from their own tribe and harbour bad
> > feelings about people from 
> > other communities."
> > 
> > "The ethnic hate our radio station was propagating
> > about those from 
> > outside the community was unbelievable. I can’t
> > repeat any of those 
> > expressions at this forum," said a journalist with
> a
> > vernacular radio 
> > station. "The unfortunate thing is we let these
> > callers speak vile and 
> > laughed about it."
> > 
> > "We took sides in the issue and we became
> > subjective, forgetting our 
> > professional tenet of objectivity and neutrality.
> In
> > fact, this 
> > polarization was so bad in the newsrooms that some
> > broadcast journalists 
> > refused to cover or read news that wasn’t
> favourable
> > to the candidate or 
> > party they supported," said a journalist.
> > 
> > In fact, leading up to the elections the local
> media
> > conveyed 
> > inflammatory campaign messages as advertisers’
> > announcements.
> > 
> > "Both print and broadcast media put money ahead of
> > responsibility by 
> > accepting and conveying paid-for hate material,"
> > Mildred Baraza, a 
> > Nairobi- based journalist told IPS. "This could
> have
> > incited the 
> > audience, and when they got a chance they avenged
> as
> > a result of the 
> > pre-election messages," she said.
> > 
> > Redemtor Atieno, another Nairobi-based journalist
> > who also helped to 
> > organise the workshop, is confident that the
> media’s
> > biased reporting 
> > contributed to the mayhem in the country.
> > 
> > "Professionalism was thrown to the dogs as tribe
> and
> > partisanship 
> > carried the day. We failed our audience by
> conveying
> > interests of 
> > politicians without questioning the impact of our
> > stories," Atieno told 
> > IPS.
> > 
> > Participants at the workshop also blamed media
> > owners for playing a 
> > major role in encouraging the violence. "They had
> > vested interests in 
> > either camp of the political divide," a reporter
> > with Kenya Broadcasting 
> > Corporation (KBC) said, adding that he and his
> > colleagues wanted to tell 
> > the real story but they couldn’t because the
> stories
> > could portray the 
> > government in a bad light.
> > 
> > "We had beautiful clips and stories from the
> field,
> > but we went back to 
> > the newsroom knowing that the story would never be
> > used," he said.
> > 
> > Even privately owned media owners who backed
> > different political parties 
> > had a hand in the stories that were carried. If it
> > was about the party 
> > they supported, they exaggerated the story and
> > generally depicted the 
> > opponents in negative ways.
> > 
> > "The media organizations refrained from telling
> the
> > world the truth 
> > about what was happening," Ochami told IPS. "There
> > has been a tendency 
> > of portraying the Kenyan crisis as a problem
> between
> > two ethnic groups 
> > -- where one [Kibaki’s Kikuyu] is victimized by
> > another [opposition 
> > leader Raila Odinga’s Luo]. Any other story on the
> > contrary is 
> > downplayed or ignored," Ochami explained.
> 
=== message truncated ===



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