Victor Bwire/FILEAs has been variously discussed, media as always will play a very big role in the 2027 general election starting with pre, during and post periods. Already pressure is building up on the media and journalists from the political class, regulatory bodies and information sourced from digital platforms.
It’s already obvious that the pre-election period, the campaigns including party primaries, elections preparedness by the IEBC including legal reforms and trust building within voters, management of party lists and the two thirds’ requirements require more media attention.
Thus, the formation of elections desks, training of journalists and creating information sharing platforms especially from the IEBC and the registrar of political parties, and more importantly steps being made to make the elections credible, deal with misinformation around fraud in the process and security arrangements require media follow
Outside the official regulatory framework and threats to law targeting digital platforms, several individuals, especially political party followers, have individually attacked media houses and journalists or strolled them online whenever they feel certain stories are unpalatable to their tastes.
Many media practitioners and journalists on the other hand have held the view that we should look at the underlying reasons why some media and journalists behave badly, including level of training and ethics, media ownership configuration and external influences and other factors.
The media operates in an environment that has serious challenges and each story published/aired or individual journalists’ behavior must be dealt with on case basis- we should stop this wholesome condemnation of the media.
The overriding concern is that the media plays a positive role in not only the country’s development agenda but also in the 2027 general election. Indeed, media freedom, quality of journalism, plurality and diversity of media and access to information are major media tenets of public media that should be guaranteed if elections are going to be free and fair.
Key lessons that have been learnt over the years is that to improve media performance will not necessarily be achieved through controlling, disciplining, or any punitive action against the journalists, but a combination of interventions by all stakeholders including the Government, media owners, editors, media managers, journalists, media council of Kenya, development partners, advertisers and Kenyans at large.
While the media is a business and should make returns; there are fundamental issues that should be considered alongside the business interests. Investors and media managers must allow journalists to be guided by their social responsibility praxis and public interest axiom that forms the philosophy of public media and the cornerstones of journalism profession.
For people to exercise their full rights as citizens, they must have access to information; Thus, media in Kenya should dedicate sufficient time and space to educate `Kenyans on matters on election and election process.
To create responsible citizenry, media must access the broadest possible range of information, interpretation and debate on areas that involve public political choices and must also be given space and airtime to register criticism and propose alternative leadership and priority issues.
While media is free and there is multiplicity of media outlets in Kenya, and while access to independent and diverse media outlets is essential to our democracy, this has not translated into more informed citizenry.
Media houses use reports that are prepared and provided free of charge by public relations firms or political parties in newscasts, they rely on a small number of elites (who are easy and inexpensive to reach) as regular news sources and focus news on pre-planned official events (which are easy and inexpensive to cover).
Safety and protection are a key concern for journalists, as many have become targets for attacks and harassment by political activists and goons. Journalists need to support understanding the myriad election related laws in advance, briefed well on elections planning details and given information in time to allow informed debate.
Radio and TV presenters need to exercise a lot of caution on how they handle talk shows and call-in programs. Some presenters have not professional enough in moderating talk shows and conducting interviews with guests. Either because of inherent biases or lack of proper preparations, many times, they make telling comments and ask questions which leave the listeners questioning their neutrality.
Although we appreciate the fact that some media houses are owned by certain political actors, we expect journalists and presenters working with those media outfits to remain professional.
Indeed, in many cases, editors have not been vigilant enough and thus have allowed careless and dangerous commentaries to be aired or published in their outlets.
It is incumbent upon editors to ensure that authors of commentaries aired on TV, radio and published in newspapers or in social media are aware and adhere to the Code of Conduct for the Practice of Journalism in Kenya.
The worst affected medium is the online forums, both for individuals and organizational postings. Media houses are not doing enough to supervise what their readers are posting on their social sites. A lot of inciting and abusive posts are made by Internet Trolls who hide behind pseudo names. Why is our media abetting their abusive and hurting posts by allowing them to remain on the sites for hours on end?
Many media outlets do not publish disclaimers under articles authored by their regular or guest columnists. It is quite possible for readers to imagine even biased commentaries/opinions represent the position/stand of the media house on the subject matter.
Editors need to exercise their discretion on opinion pieces especially from columnists who are known to be working as consultants for certain political parties. They should not publish everything they receive from these columnists. The pieces should be edited for accuracy and fairness.
Media sector players have already started with the preparation of elections reporting guidelines, resource mobilization and joint elections preparedness planning.
