[kictanet] Election fiasco reveals Technological dinosaurs

[Mike Theuri]

Wainaina/All,

One suggestion would be to put financial penalties in place which the media
council could impose on violators of its professional code of conduct. These
penalties could be imposed based on a number of factors, for example:

a) The seriousness of the offence
b) The turnover of the offender
c) Whether it is a repeat offence
d) Whether the offender had been previously warned or sanctioned by the
council
e) The number of complaints against the offender filed with the council (ie
the offenders history)
f) The role of the offender in the incident. An example has been given of a
vernacular radio station broadcasting in a certain province on some
blogs where the stations presenters did not make inflammatory comments but
callers into the station did. In such a case the station could have
reasonably (see c) above) used its duty of care to the public to condemn
such conduct by callers, alternatively suspended the program or
alternatively used slightly delayed transmission of the program so as to
edit such comments.

Offenders who fail to be deterred by the council could then be subjected to
higher penalties such as the revocation or suspension of trading or
broadcast licences (this would be similar to the LSK forwarding a complaint
to the advocates complaints commission which is under the AGs office). This
would of course have to take a tiered approach. The above criteria
are unresearched suggestions with the intent of ensuring that media houses
are not intentionally crippled as was the case with libel awards that in the
past effectively shut down some of them eg Weekly Review etc.

Naturally all of these cannot take place outside of a legal framework and
this is where Wainaina's suggestion comes in, stakeholders and concerned
citizens would need to come forward to formulate reasonable laws which
hopefully a sane and working parliament would implement. The above are by no
means the ultimate solution as there could be better ways of addressing the
issues at hand.


On Jan 11, 2008 7:00 AM, <wainaina.mungai at gmail.com> wrote:

> We cannot and should not deny that we are different people. We are
> Luhya, Luo, Kikuyu and Kalenjin, Kamba, Kisii, MijiKenda etc. That is
> the reality and it is a Good Thing. I am a Kikuyu by descent yet I
> enjoy some Luo tunes and some lyrics. There are however cultural
> differences that have been played-up in a way that divides us. That's
> where the problem lies; not in language.
>
> Programming in vernacular "connects" better with majority of Kenyans
> in rural areas and many in urban areas. The need for the such identity
> can be seen in Kenyans when they are stuck in the Diaspora....where
> they crave for anything Kenyans (be it in Swahili, Sheng' or
> vernacular). So ethnic identity is not necessarily a bad thing. It has
> simply been abused.
>
> So what is the way forward? All media houses in Kenya should be
> "tamed" in some way or other. because we have seen misconduct among
> our English-based FM stations and Newspapers.
>
> - One way would have been the Media Council. We need to strengthen the
> Media Act and related laws to protect Kenyans.
>
> - I would support the retention of vernacular FM stations because they
> can be turned into tools for enhancing an appreciation for our
> diversity as one nation.
>
>
> Regards,
> Wainaina
>
>
> On 1/11/08, Dan Njiriri <njiris2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Dear Leonard and all,
> >
> > We in Kenya ignored to be one Nation one people by
> > paying too much attention to our tribal affiliations.
> > The vernacular stations have either been positive or
> > negative depending on the subject matter.However, if
> > we all used Swahili/English in all communications, we
> > would be moving closer to being one nation, one
> > people!
> >
> > The vernacular stations would do more service to this
> > country if they converted to swahili.
> >
> > Dan Njiriri
> >
>
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