BY David Matende
As TV viewers stare at blank screens following the shutdown of the analogue signals of NTV, Citizen, KTN and QTV by the Communication Authority of Kenya (CAK), Kenya’s credentials as a press freedom proponent are under threat.
The news darkness occasioned by the switch off was aptly symbolic of the gloomy phase the country finds itself under the increasingly intolerant government of President Uhuru Kenyatta.
International press freedom watchdog, Reporters without Frontiers, says, in its 2014 World Press Freedom Index, that Kenya has dropped a significant 19 places from last year to position 90 out of 180 countries this year. The country now finds itself in the unenviable group that includes the likes of Mali, the Central African Republic and Burundi, whose decline in media freedom is largely attributed to civil conflict.
For a country that was beginning to make a strong showing in the press freedom ratings, this is a discouraging development. That press freedom is a significant ingredient of democracy is not debatable. In fact, lack of press freedom and political dictatorship go hand in hand. Could Kenya be heading down that dangerous path?
It is universally accepted that everyone has the right to receive information and to express and disseminate his opinion. This right is enshrined in constitutions, charters and conventions world over.
It goes without saying that only a free, independent and functioning media can guarantee that right, because media provide information to enable citizens to make informed decisions and hold elected representatives accountable.
The relationship between media and democracy is thus intrinsic and the right to freedom of expression is recognised as a fundamental human right. If the drop in ranking is anything to go by, Kenya has dangerously veered off the democracy track and is hurtling down a deadly cliff.
According to the report, the Jubilee-dominated Parliament is singularly responsible for turning the country backwards by curtailing media freedom through passing some very retrogressive laws. In late 2013, parliament passed the Media Council Act 2013 and the Kenya Information Communication (Amendment) Act 2013. These laws have been criticised because they contain clauses that are meant to give government control over media. The laws also impose hefty fines on errant media houses and journalists. And late last through the contentious security laws, government attempted to control media by seeking to legislate how media could report on terror attacks. Thankfully, the High Court mid-February, declared some of the provisions, some touching on media, unconstitutional and therefore invalid.
Recently, the Parliamentary Powers and Privileges Bill, 2014, were tabled in the House with the aim of preventing the media and public from scrutinising the work of Parliament.
The alacrity with which President Kenyatta assented to the laws leaves no doubt that he is contemptuous of press freedom, which is not surprising given that he is a political protégé of former president Daniel arap Moi, under whose rule media felt the weight of repression.
It is rather sad that instead of emulating progressive states, the Kenyan state is keen to join backward ones. There is something to be said about countries where press enjoys unfettered freedom. Finland, which takes the lead in the press freedom index, is not only economically prosperous, but also politically stable. The same is true of Netherlands and Norway, which came second and third respectively.
As if enacting harsh media laws is not bad enough, the way the government has been handling the TV digital migration process is very suspicious with credible claims that government is using the exercise to further undermine independent media. For starters, the government had resolved to deny Citizen, NTV, Q-TV and NTV licences to distribute the digital signals. Only the government-owned Signet and Chinese owned Pan African Network Group (with the onomatopoeic abbreviation ‘Pang”) were licensed. It later emerged that Pang has significant local shareholding – belonging, of course, to a member or members of the ruling elite.
Well-choreographed move
In an apparently choreographed arrangement, the CAK then declared December, 2013 as the deadline for end of analogue broadcasts in Nairobi and its environs.
After a brief switch off, the deadline was extended as the broadcasters engaged the CAK in a protracted court battle, which finally saw them finally licensed.
A new deadline was set for December, 2014 but the broadcasters went to the Supreme Court – seeking an extension of time to allow them purchase their own set top boxes, which would allow them to transmit.
However, the court threw out their plea. In a suspicious hurry last month, the CAK quickly moved to shut down the broadcasters’ analogue signals. Piqued, they, in turn, switched off the digital signals, throwing the country into unprecedented news blackout.
As the government continuous to frustrate the four, there appears to be deliberate and sustained efforts to bolster a fledgling media group, MediaMax, which is owned by the President himself. Consequently, everyone with a digital decoder has been forced to watch K24 which, needless to say, skews its news broadcasts in favour of the ruling class, as does the state-owned KBC.
K24’s good fortune comes amid reports that MediaMax is keen on acquiring the Standard Media Group; President Kenyatta wants to consolidate key media stations and newspapers under his company. This is a terrifying prospect for press freedom because it will mean the gagging of an erstwhile independent media
But even as media suffers under the repressive Jubilee, there are those who say that media actually boxed themselves into the corner they now find themselves. They recall that some media houses actually supported Jubilee’s campaign during the 2013 election, and failed in their watchdog responsibility following the controversial declaration of Kenyatta as the winner
During the presidential vote tallying exercise at the Bomas of Kenya in early March, 2013, for example, media refused to cover some Cord press conferences at which the Opposition complained about the way exercise was being carried on.
Ashamed of the role they may have played in the 2007/2008 post-election violence, media were too careful in 2013, to the point of abdicating their watchdog responsibility.
They had been roped into a peace campaign launched months prior to the election and took this as an excuse not to report news they thought “disruptive”.
Even as controversy raged over the presidential poll, with the Opposition offering credible evidence that the election may have been cooked, media continued to ignore it and rallied the people behind their peace agenda. As Kenyatta settled in office, media played cheerleader, praising the president as a youthful and dynamic leader, just the right person Kenya needed to achieve economic prosperity.
At the same time, media derided everyone who criticised the new administration. The tone of their reports then suggested that it was important to “move on”.
Naturally, Jubilee assumed it had media in its corner, which is why government was enraged when media seemed to have re-discovered itself in late 2013.
While the relationship between media and Jubilee had soured much earlier, it was the Westgate terror attack that broke the camel’s back. Any illusions about an alliance with media dissipated when media went full throttle in exposing government’s disorganisation in responding to the attack. The President didn’t like it and expressed his disappointment in no uncertain terms.
With the president’s displeasure over media’s no-holds-barred reporting of the terror-attack, the stage had been set for battle between government and media, in which the media were poised to be the losers. However, even as government moves to muzzle press freedom, some think that Kenyan media has slowly but surely eschewed important matters and resorted to reporting the frivolous; that they are anything but the people’s watchdog. Media’s apparent obsession with political personalities, the watchers say, tends to block out more pertinent information
Television particularly tends to convert politics into forms of entertainment for mass consumption. Stories about political strategy, political infighting, political scandal and the private lives of politicians tend to crowd out less entertaining stories of immense public interest.
Politics is important, but media’s entertainment approach to politics eventually has dominated and weeded out other forms of political information and public discussion, transforming the very meaning of public discourse.
Although all indications are that the corruption-riddled Jubilee administration will continue to undermine press freedom for fear of being spotlighted, media on the other hand must rediscover their true calling. That is the only way they can win the battle.