BY DAVID MATENDE
Kenyans would never have known how they lost billions of shillings through Goldenberg had veteran journalist Sarah Elderkin not exposed the scandal. Elderkin’s expose was a classic example of how commitment to public interest journalism can save society from the excesses of an avaricious power elite.
That was more than 20 years ago. Today, how many Kenyan journalists can claim fidelity to this higher form of journalism? Which house can claim that it encourages its journalists to investigate and report on matters of major public interest?
For some unclear reason, our media – which are celebrated alongside Africa’s best – have seemingly decided that is better to gloss over important issues than to probe and expose. All they do is to cover the news events. Yet, there many important stories that are crying out for investigation. Are journalists unwilling or are they simply unable to prod issues that are of real public interest?
For instance, a precocious journalist would have by now told the public how land belonging to Lang’ata Road Primary School illegally fell in the hands of a senior politician (at least none had done so by the time of writing this article). Then there is the disconcerting matter of the disappearence and subsequent killing of a man said to have been a witness in the case involving the Deputy President William Ruto at the ICC, Meshack Yebei, and others who have either disappeared or died in unclear circumstances.
Why have journalists not bothered to find out and report exactly what is happening? Isn’t this matter as serious as it can ever get to warrant an investigation? All journalists do is report the news angles to this story; nothing else.
And why are there no reports on the progress of the Galana Irrigation Scheme? Had we not been told that the scheme is exactly what was prescribed as the cure for the country’s perennial hunger problem? That our journalists have shown little interest in this multi-billion enterprise must be one of the wonders of 21st century in terms of economic reporting. Has Galana failed or not? Isn’t it the work of the journalist to tell the public why and how it has failed, or when to expect the bumper harvest, if it is succeeding?
Next month, President Kenyatta will celebrate two years in office. If you expect media to interrogate his performance and detail how he is not even close to implementing his campaign pledges, including the so-called flagship projects, you will be disappointed. That is simply not the way media works these days.
Today, to refer to them as the people’s watchdog is to misuse that term. They have suddenly become too laid-back to hold the powerful to account, or expose fraud, deceit, corruption, mismanagement and incompetence in government. Yet the watchdog role of media is important not just for holding those in power to account, but because when those in power know they are being held to account, they are likely to behave responsibly.
As if failing in the watchdog responsibility is not bad enough, the media has also neglected its role to inform, explain and analyse as well as one would expect. A public-interest journalist does not only search; he also digests and distils information that helps the public form views and make decisions. For instance, the Catholic Church and the government have been embroiled in controversy over the tetanus vaccine for mothers and children, with the church claiming the vaccine contains substances used in family planning. Even when it seemed that the matter had been resolved, the church issued a statement disclaiming the results of a test done jointly with the government on the vaccine. This controversy has raged for long, but no media house has bothered to carry out independent investigation to tell the public the correct position. By choosing to eschew public interest journalism, the media is advertently or inadvertently undermining democracy, because democracy hinges on the interrogation of those in power and on freely expressing matters affecting the public.
Has the media been threatened or has it been cajoled by some “dark forces” to stop questioning matters that are of critical importance to the public? The answer must be yes.
Over the last one year, the Jubilee government has tended to look at media with a lot of suspicion. When Kenyatta took over power in 2013, he found a media that was ready and willing to cheer him on. It extolled the virtues of the younger, “digital” leadership that was set to take Kenya to its economic Canaan.
As one way of paying back the compliment, the president decided to host a huge group of journalists to a lavish breakfast at State House, where representatives of journalists marvelled at the generosity of a friendly and easy-going president who was not only willing to share a cup of coffee with the fourth estate on his expansive lawns but was also available for comment.
Naturally, the president, his deputy and other senior people in their administration began to assume that media would be at their beck and call. To their dismay, however, a few months later, media come to their senses and started pointing out some excesses within government, starting with “Hustler Jet” scandal involving the deputy president.
Then came the terror attack on Westgate Mall in Nairobi. Media exposed disorganisation in government in responding to the attack. The president was livid. He fell short of describing media the way Stanley Baldwin famously compared the British press in 1931 to a harlot who has “power without responsibility”.
Both media and government realised it was simply impossible to be friends. Historically, government has always seen media as a threat and vice versa. Media would hardly be described as the fourth estate if their relationship with government was not antagonistic.
Unable to befriend media, government decided to tame them through repressive media laws. In late 2013, the National Assembly passed the Media Council Act 2013 and the Kenya Information Communication (Amendment) Act 2013. Both laws contain clauses that are meant to give government some sort of control over media. The laws also impose hefty fines on “errant” media houses and journalists. The laws are being challenged in the courts, and they have since been suspended. And late last year, through an omnibus security law, government attempted to control media by purporting to legislate how they could report on terror attacks. This too has been challenged in court.
Unable to tame them through legislation, government has adopted insidious methods to ensure its failures are kept away from the public. From the look of things, government seems to have infiltrated media and could have co-opted some senior managers and could also be having a hand in the appointment of others in the various news media. There have been several high level “retirements” of top journalists lately. Are the positions left behind by the “retiring” being filled by pliant individuals?
Secondly, there was an attempt last year to centralise government advertising, with suggestions that all adverts be channelled to media via a unit based at the ministry of Information, Communication and Technology. This move was seen as an attempt to deny non-conformist media government advertising.
But the most worrying development is an apparent attempt to bring all influential media under the control of media business closely related to the ruling elite, or even under the direct control of members of the ruling elite.
President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Media Max Network is reportedly planning to buy the Standard Group. MediaMax owns People Daily, K24 TV and Kameme FM If MediaMax succeeds in buying the Standard Group, it will also own Kenya’s oldest newspaper, The Standard, the country’s first private TV, KTN, Radio Maisha and the Nairobian, among others. Against this backdrop, there is little hope that the remaining media houses will be keen to pursue public interest journalism
Government aside, Big Business also pose a threat to public interest journalism. Because large corporations play an ever-bigger part in our lives (think Safaricom, for instance), scrutiny of their behaviour is becoming more and more urgent. Yet they remain mostly unexamined or only occasionally assessed. This corporations are known to spend significant sums in advertising not only as a way of marketing their goods but also as a way of “bribing” media owners so that they are not scrutinised even if their behaviour is contrary to public interest.
Stand for public interest
So if the government is perverting the course of public-interest journalism, business is quite happy to promote private interest, and the public remains blissfully unaware, who is going to serve the public interest? Threats to public-interest journalism are real and growing, but they are not irreversible. Salvation might just come from unexpected places. With millions having been empowered by new technology (in Kenya, the youth provide big hope), the roles previously played by professional journalists might be taken over by conscientious citizens via the so-called citizen journalism.
Already the impact of some of them is being felt, never mind their sometimes very disgusting style of delivery. Technology is helping individuals and groups to take on the roles previously ascribed to journalists. If professional journalists continue to sleep on their job, they will soon surrender their most treasured role to ordinary people with access to keyboards.
But given that the efforts of the citizen journalists are haphazard and often motivated by personal as opposed to public interest, there is an urgent need for genuine public-interest journalism.
Unless editors and journalist make firm decisions to promote and nurture this journalism, our society is in real danger.
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