[kictanet] Bitange for President? Reality-on Media

Sun Jan 15 22:36:48 EAT 2012

Alice,
The question of media is often a tricky one.  In my view our media has greatly matured.  Kenyans gave media freedoms and limitations in the constitution.  No one should interfere with this.  I will assume they are a responsible professional group.  In any case as "President" I shall preserve and protect the constitution.

Of course technology has its impact on any professional organization but it never negates rules of natural justice.  In England for example where they do not have a prescriptive constitution like ours, people are being prosecuted for their tweets.  If you recall in 2007, our diaspora brothers and sisters indeed fueled the crisis from their comfort zones.  We hope this time around distance does not fool them to fuel a crisis at home.

I am confident the social media will not be misused as it was in 2007.  There are strict broadcast regulations that feeding broadcast from the social media shall lead to dire consequences. 

As a citizen I shall continue to ask media to be more analytical and do more research in order to build this noble profession.  I am a bit disappointed that journalists do not interrogate political statement so that the general public can benefit.

For example, when URP stated that they are running on family values.  Good journalism demands that the term Family be defined.  Other questioned should have included:  What does family constitute? Is what they mean in consonant with the African values?

Further when ODM stated that employment creation will be their platform.  We need to know how employment will be created.  Whether an experiment like Kazi Kwa Vijana constitute employment creation.  What demonstratable experience we can latch on as prove of delivering these promises?

Unless media helps us to get to the bottom of these promises, we shall find ourselves with empty rhetoric.  From when I was little politicians promised roads, schools, water for all etc.  But even today these promises remain a pipe dream.

We have broken street lights that cannot be repaired because there is no trained electrician.  We have broken sewers because we have no trained plumbers.  We import chairs from Italy as we have no carpenters. We have broken medical equipment that we pay a fortune to get technicians from abroad. And more.  In my own estimate we need 400,000 artisans if we need to be in middle income country.    

One of the greatest weakness of media is what they call news.  In most cases news depends on the magnitude and how that even varies from the norm and of course timing.

Take for example the unfortunate event at Village market.  If the even would have taken place on January 23 (during the ICC ruling) it will not have been covered and all will be fine for Nancy.  It so happened that Nancy was a very senior woman (a noticeable variance) in Kenyan leadership that some media may have tried to show that even women are equally as bad.

Most men waheshimiwas have altercations with airport security but none has ever been pursued as the Village Market event.  Media has not given this parallel so far.  The same waheshimiwas with greater responsibility have threatened police with guns but it never gets that far. 

Do not get me wrong here that I am supporting Nancy.  I am raising points that media (which brought out the issue) should have considered.  Unless we do proper analytics, some of us may never understand the intricacies of gender discrimination.

Our Media is still better than most.  Let us continue to constructively criticize it for a better future.

Ndemo.

Sent from my BlackBerry®

-----Original Message-----
From: Alice Munyua <alice at apc.org>
Sender: kictanet-bounces+bitange=jambo.co.ke at lists.kictanet.or.keDate: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 23:59:33 
To: <bitange at jambo.co.ke>
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions<kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Subject: [kictanet] Bitange for President? Reality-on Media

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