purposes. - Media Council of Kenya OBSERVER... · 2015-01-21 · Social media redefining breaking...

The Media Observer October-December 20142

The Council draws its mandate and authority from the Media Council Act 2013. Its functions are to:

• Promote and protect the freedom and independence of the media;

• Prescribe standards of journalists, media practitioners and media enterprises;

• Ensure the protection of the rights and privileges of journalists in the performance of their duties;

• Promote and enhance ethical and professional standards amongst journalists and media enterprises;

• Advise the government or the relevant regulatory authority on matters relating to professional, education and the training of journalists and other media practitioners;

• Set standards, in consultation with the relevant training institutions, for professional education and training of journalists;

• Develop and regulate ethical and disciplinary standards for journalists, media practitioners and media enterprises;

• Accredit journalists and foreign journalists by certifying their competence, authority or credibility against official standards based on the quality and training of journalists in Kenya including the maintaining of a register of journalists, media enterprises and such other related registers as it may deem fit and issuance of such document evidencing accreditation with the Council as the Council shall determine;

• Conduct an annual review of the performance and the general public opinion of the media, and publish the results in at least two daily newspapers of national circulation;

• Through the Cabinet Secretary, table before Parliament reports on its functions;

• Establish media standards and regulate and monitor compliance with the media standards;

• Facilitate resolution of disputes between the government and the media and between the public and the media and intra media;

• Compile and maintain a register of accredited journalists, foreign journalists, media enterprises and such other related registers as it may consider necessary;

• Subject to any other written law, consider and approve applications for accreditation by educational institutions that seek to offer courses in journalism; and

• Perform such other functions as may be assigned to it under any other written law.

The Media Council of Kenya is an independent national institution established by the Media Council Act 2013 for purposes of setting of media standards and ensuring compliance with those standards as set out in Article 34(5) of the Constitution and for connected purposes.

Council’s Role, Mandate, Functions and Authority

The Media Observer October-December 2014 3

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EDITORIALConflicts: Why the media has to stand out....................... 5

Letters............................................................................. 6

INSIDE THE COUNCILTanzania regulator seeks tips on polls coverage............... 7

The big debate: Ethics of covering conflict....................... 11

Will the media be the ultimate saviour?.......................... 14

EXPLORING PRIVATE SECURITY OPTIONS......................... 16 Devolution and conflicts: A guide for journalists.............. 19

Sticky issue: Land conflicts and the Fourth Estate............ 22

Linking national values, media and peace........................ 25 Women, conflict and the missing media link.................... 28

Alarm over wanton attacks on journalists...................... 31

Why a secure north may still be a mirage...................... 34 At odds: Media role and the ‘conveyer belt’ mantra...... 37

Weighing up objectivity and peace journalism............... 40

Role of sports journalism in peace promotion............... 43

Social media redefining breaking news.......................... 46

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The Media Observer is published quarterly by

the Media Council of Kenya with assistance from Ford Foundation. The views expressed in articles published in

this publication are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect those of the Media Council of Kenya.

Media Council of Kenya P.O. Box 43132 – 00100

Nairobi, Kenya Tel: (+254 20) 2737058, 2725032

Cell: +254 727 735252Email: [email protected]

Editorial TeamChief Executive Officer

Dr Haron Mwangi

Editorial BoardJoe Kadhi-Chairman

Dr Martha Mbugguss-Vice ChairpersonProf Levi Obonyo

Otsieno NamwayaJane Godia

Wangethi Mwangi

Consulting EditorOmondi Oloo

Editorial CoordinatorsVictor BwireJerry Abuga

Kevin Mabonga

Contributors AllenitaGakii Amos Kibet Churchill Otieno Elias Makori George Kegoro Immaculate Mwende Jane Godia Jerry Abuga Joe Kadhi Kevin Mabonga MachariaMunene Martha Mbugguss Mwenda Mbijiwe Otsieno Namwaya Peter Mwaura Washington Makodingo

Photo CreditsMoses Omusula

Jerry Abuga

Design and LayoutSamuel Wagura

Print House


Journalists covering conflicts in Kenya are mired in a catch 22 situation; publishing stories and pictures that are deemed to be fuelling rather than defusing conflict. While this has been a historical concern, the trend in reporting of local and regional conflicts continue provoking pertinent questions, including what should be expected of journalists in conflict situations and to what extent journalists in Kenya can exercise balance.

The big question remains: Is the media; print, broadcast and online doing enough to provide full and objective information, which can enable the public to make informed decisions and play their civic rights when covering conflicts? This is the question many news consumers and media analysts are asking.

At the Media Council, we envisage a media which adheres to the professional Code of Conduct for the Practice of Journalism in Kenya; a media which places a high value on democratic freedoms, and rightly takes advantage of professional ethical values to focus on stories that diffuse rather than escalate conflicts. Promoting co-existence and dialogue among communities should at the core of a journalist’s call because a news item, an editorial or an opinion published or aired can quell or excite emotions.

A responsible media should continually remind the authorities of their broader responsibilities to ensure that their response to conflicts is consistent with the rule of law, respect for basic rights and the demands of social justice. Journalists should look to the common good

when reporting and question inaccurate statements by all parties to any conflict

The Media Council of Kenya has been undertaking activities aimed at educating journalists and the public on the role and need for professional journalism, especially in relation to national cohesion and national development. We will consistently engage everyone to ensure positive transformation.

The media must not report events and incidents without deeper probe. If conflicts are to recede, it is important to understand the causes and all the processes alongside possible remedies to speed up resolution. Again, I say the media should and must always remain a key agent of change. In an era defined by social media, the responsibility of the media to objectively report on conflict is even greater. It is vital to draw the line between fact and sensation.

Dr Haron MwangiChief Executive Officer & Secretary to the Council

Conflicts: Why the media has to stand out

EDITORIAL


Plans by the Media Council of Kenya to visit institutions of learning to check on facilities and qualifications of lecturers who offer journalism courses could not have come at a better time. It comes in the backdrop of worrying state of journalism in terms of quality due to lack of a standardised curriculum for all media training institutions and mushrooming of media schools claiming to offer professional training. Some are backstreet colleges.

A quick check on the Media Council’s website reveals that only handful institutions have been given the green light to offer journalism training, yet there are many institutions which have ventured into this seemingly lucrative enterprise of training media students.Moreover, most institutions offering this training are not accredited by the Media Council, what with the substandard courses being offered.

It is even more telling that the people who stand in front of students purporting to teach these courses do not themselves possess the requisite qualifications.The offshoot of this is the rise of a new generation of graduates who are ill equipped to undertake the rigours that the practice of journalism demands. This explains why some recent graduates cannot tell an “intro” from a “headline.”

And for most of the teachers, having studied English or Kiswahili does not, in itself,

constitute the qualifications to teach journalism or mass communication. County governments have also worsened the image of the profession. In some counties, officials who never went to journalism schools have become “media relations advisors and PR practitioners.”

It is time the Media Council reined in on unscrupulous individuals and institutions out to exploit unsuspecting would-be students and their parents or guardians. This doesn’t bode well for the practice of journalism, which is increasingly being inundated by quack journalists just because (s)he has a camera, a note book and pen. We need to support the Media Council to inject sanity and restore the profession’s waning image.

Patrick AmunaviNairobi

Security agencies must weed out inept officersI read the July-September 2014 edition of the Media Observer with a lot of interest.

In it, there was a feedback from the Director of Criminal Investigations Ndegwa Muhoro regarding the relationship between journalists and security agencies, which has historically been sour. The CID boss rightly observed that the media and security agencies must co-exist.

His input was outstanding but I strongly believe security officers need to put their house in order. My experience with some of them tells me more needs to be done to redeem the image of the sector. It is unacceptable that police some officers go to any length to protect their colleagues who engage in criminal activities. It makes no sense that law enforcement officers who are supposed to be the custodians of the law end up breaking the same law.

John MwangiRoyal Media ServicesNarok

Issue was a critical referenceThe July-September 2014 issue dwelt on a very critical component in enhancing professionalism in the media in the country – training. Demand for professional courses among school leavers has given rise to “commercial” middle - level colleges that seek to satiate this increasing demand but in essence only seek to exploit the business opportunity. The result has been ill-trained professionals flooding the job market every year and unequipped training institutions dotting every town in the country.

For journalism in Kenya to sustain its place as an honourable vocation, personnel in the industry must be managed by the professional body legally mandated with regulation in the country. The Media Council is taking the right perspective.

Your choice of writers for the issue and the topics addressed is highly commendable. This makes the issue a vital reference for upcoming and practicing journalists. We would appreciate if you could avail a hundred more copies for distribution to our field offices.

Benard Ngugi for: Director of InformationMinistry of Information, Communications and Technology

LETTERS TO THE EDITORMove to streamline journalism training timely


As Tanzania prepares for its fifth General Election since the restoration of multi-party in 1992, its communications regulator, the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) was in Kenya on a fact-finding mission on

media coverage of elections.

Members of the authority’s Content Committee led by Margaret Munyagi paid a courtesy call on the Media Council of Kenya on November 5, 2014.The team commended the Kenyan media for its outstanding conduct during the 2013 elections, saying it was a complete turnaround from the “unfortunate events that unfolded after the 2007 General Election.”

Munyagi said her team was in the country on a benchmarking tour to adequately prepare the Tanzanian media to effectively handle the October 2015 General Election. She commended the Media Council of Kenya for its efforts to promote press freedom and professional journalism, adding that Kenya’s media remains the most robust in the region.

Media Council CEO Dr Haron Mwangi told the team the council had published a Guidelines for Elections Coverage in Kenya booklet in April 2012 to guide journalists in the coverage of elections.“The publication was developed out of collaborative efforts between the media

stakeholders and various organisations to ensure the smooth running of a credible, peaceful and democratic election and its proper coverage by the media,” he said.

“The guidelines were aimed at helping journalists to provide comprehensive, accurate, impartial, balanced and fair coverage of the elections, thus enabling the voter to make informed choices. In addition, the guidelines apply to all media houses — whether private, or State-owned — as well as the authorities involved in or policing the electoral process,” he said.

Jerry Abuga is the Communications & Information Officer at the Media Council of [email protected]

INSIDE THE COUNCIL Tanzania regulator seeks tips on polls coverage

By Jerry Abuga

www.mediacouncil.or.ke


The Media Council of Kenya launched a report on media coverage of ethnic, religious and sectarian conflicts in Kenya. The report titled ‘Deconstructing Terror’ provides an assessment of how the Kenyan media covered

radicalisation and religious intolerance.

Speaking during the launch at a Nairobi hotel, Media Council Deputy CEO Victor Bwire commended journalists for the role they have played with regards to covering radicalisation and religious intolerance. He reminded them of their responsibility to protect public interest.

Mr Bwire urged the public to play its part by giving authorities the required information, instead of continuously blaming the media.“The media depends on information from the public and it can only perform to expectations if the public shares that information,” Mr Bwire noted

Commenting on how media has covered security issues, he stressed the need for all the stakeholders to unite and desist from blame game.“Security is such a weighty matter. Everybody must therefore play their part well to secure our country,” he said.

The Deputy CEO encouraged the public to report any

complaints against media to the Complaints Commission of the Media Council. He urged the public to beware of individuals masquerading as journalists. “All accredited journalists have press cards issued by the Media Council of Kenya, so anybody operating without the card should not be treated as a journalist,” said Mr Bwire.

The Research and Media Monitoring Officer at the Media Council of Kenya Amos Kibet took the participants through the findings of the report. The press was largely accused of focusing much on radical commentators and emphasising on the dramatic and violent acts, a trend that goes against the Code of Conduct for the Practice of Journalism. Mr Kibet called on the media to be responsible by ensuring a balanced representation of issues. He asked journalists to research thoroughly on a topic before reporting.“There is a tendency by journalists to report based on rumours or through sources that are not authoritative,” a participant said, adding: “The Media Council should conduct more public education on sensitive issues like religion.”

The Council launched the report across the country.

Kevin Mabonga is a Communications Assistant at the Media Council of [email protected]

Council launches Radicalisation Report, calls for objective reporting By Kevin Mabonga


The Media Council of Kenya in collaboration with the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) and the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) on November 3, 2014 conducted a business

journalism training in Nairobi.The training which targeted business and financial reporters, aimed at enhancing media participation in economic growth and creation of a favourable environment for investment through knowledge-based reporting.

Some of the key areas covered included the economic outlook of Kenya, overview of capital markets in Kenya, aspects of financial reporting, corporate governance and media ethics.

The acting Director for Regulatory, Policy and Strategy at the Capital Markets Authority Luke Ombara said building capacity of journalists on business and financial reporting would enhance transparency, accountability and good governance. A media with an in-depth understanding of the operations and the dynamics of the capital markets and the financial sector will play a major role in protecting investors from financial fraud,” Mr Ombara said.

Media Council CEO Dr Haron Mwangi encouraged journalists to embrace the tenets of financial reporting as “it was the missing link in the profession”.He announced that the Council, in collaboration with the National Committee on Trade Facilitation, was planning a series of business trainings targeting journalists in 47 counties.

Head of ACCA-Kenya Anthony Kariuki commended journalists for their enthusiasm to gain financial literacy, saying it would enhance excellence in financial journalism. He pointed out the importance of the public as investors in the capital markets and challenged journalists to present insightful and analytical business news.

Joe Kadhi, a veteran journalist and lecturer at USIU, gave a detailed presentation on ethical principles of journalism, urging journalists to observe responsibility in executing their duties.

Immaculate Mwende is a Media Analyst at the Media Council of [email protected]

Media Council, partners hold business journalism trainings By Immaculate Mwende


Media Council officials held meetings with stakeholders in various counties as part of its continued attempt to foster professionalism and coexistence between the media and the public.

Discussions on the role of journalists in the development

process took centre stage at a forum on December 15, 2014 at the Westwood Hotel in Nyeri, where the performance of radio stations and the role of media in the growth of the county were discussed.Participants, who included journalists, representatives from the civil society and the county government, were also taken through the Council’s mandate and the findings of a report on the performance of radio stations in the country published by the Media Council.

Speaking at the forum, Research and Media Monitoring Officer at the Media Council of Kenya Amos Kibet said some of the complaints bordered on the quality of moderation, caller comments, and inappropriate topical discussions, sensationalised and often immoral contributions.Mr Kibet said most breaches affect vernacular radio stations. He urged journalists to put professionalism above everything else while reporting. “The media sets the agenda for society and the influence is immense, thus the need for responsibility among journalists,” he said.

In Kakamega, the Council held a public forum on December 1, 2014 at Golf hotel, attended by Communications students from Masinde Muliro University, members of the County Assembly, and officials from teachers’ unions.The event, conducted to engage the public on media issues, saw the public raise concerns over the blatant disregard of the Code of Ethics for Practice of Journalism by some journalists. Top on the list were the morning hour

discussions in most radio stations, described as obscene and vulgar. Misrepresentation of facts in political stories was also raised.

Media Council Deputy CEO Victor Bwire asked the public to appreciate the work of journalists while at the same time, saying the media should uphold the standards set by the Media Council Act 2013. Mr Bwire asked politicians and the public to support journalists on the ground. “You should support journalists by giving them the required information,” said Mr Bwire.

The Council also trained journalists from November 26 to November 28, 2014 at Skynest County Hotel, Kitale. The training which focused on devolution, ethical principles, interviewing skills and content development, targeted journalists from Trans Nzoia County. Council CEO Dr Haron Mwangi took the participants through emerging issues in the Kenyan Media and how they relate to devolution. Dr Mwangi asked journalists to avoid to conflict of interest. He singled out the case of journalists working with the county governments as consultants while still holding onto their position as correspondents.

Allenita Gakii is a Media Analyst at the Media Council of Kenya. [email protected]

Additional reporting by Kevin Mabonga.

Media Council reaches out to public through forumsBy Allenita Gakii


As a scholarly study, conflict has become so vast and diverged that the field is now flooded with research work

and varied areas of specialisation. The specialised areas concern the journalistic coverage of conflict and conflict resolution which is now growing into conflict transformation. The debate among professionals is getting heated about whether it is a journalist’s business to be concerned with efforts to build peace where conflict exits; or to be only concerned with getting that conflict story and getting it right.

Despite the fact that journalists in the United States are, for example, guided by, among other principles, the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE)’ Code of Ethics, individual institutions like the New York Times have their own handbooks of values and practices for the news and editorial department, which guide professionals on how to conduct journalistic tasks ethically.

The New York Times handbook is elaborate on areas of conflict which it lists as “Conflicts of Interest” which it also admits may be real or apparent;

and may come up in many areas. According to the handbook, areas of conflict of interest may involve the relationships of staff members with readers, news sources, advocacy groups, advertisers, or competitors; with one another, or with the newspaper or its parent company. On adherence to ethical principles while covering stories, including stories about conflicts, the handbook says The Times would strive to maintain the highest standards of journalistic ethics in keeping with its solemn responsibilities under the First Amendment and it is confident its staff members would share that goal.

This means journalists from New York Times, like those from other American institutions which are internationally respected for their professional high standards, would be expected to cover conflict while obeying all the seven original 1922 ethical principles of Independence, Freedom of the Press, Impartiality, Fair Play, Decency, Accuracy and Responsibility. Of these, two are of great significance while covering stories whose news values are based on conflict: Accuracy and Impartiality.

On truth and accuracy, the ASNE code says good faith with the reader

is the foundation of good journalism and expects all American journalists to make every effort to assure news content of whatever nature , including about conflict, is accurate, free from bias and in context, and that all sides are presented fairly. Editorials, analytical articles and commentary, it says, should be held to the same standards of accuracy with respect to facts as news reports. It also suggests that significant errors of fact, as well as errors of omission, should be corrected promptly and prominently.

The Kenya ethical principle on Accuracy and Fairness is in fact not so different from the ASNE one. Very much like the American code, the Kenyan one says the fundamental objective of a journalist is to write a fair, accurate and an unbiased story on matters of public interest. According to the principle, all sides of the story should be reported wherever possible and adds that comments should be obtained from anyone who is mentioned in an unfavourable context.

In the spirit of the ASNE code, the Kenya one also demands that whenever it is recognised that an inaccurate, misleading or distorted story has been published or broadcast, it should be corrected

The big debate: Ethics of covering conflictWhile proper verification of facts by journalists is paramount, debate rages on whether a reporter’s role includes peace building or just getting the hard facts and filing the story. JOE KADHI looks at the ethical benchmarks.


promptly. It even suggests the manner in which the corrections should be done by demanding that those corrections should present the correct information and should not restate the error except when clarity demands.

The Kenyan Code goes further to suggest the manner in which apologies should be published or broadcast whenever appropriate in such a manner the Media Council may specify. Being more specific than the American code, the Kenyan one also demands that when stories fall short on accuracy and fairness, they should not be published and concludes that journalists, while free to be partisan, should distinguish clearly in their reports between comment, conjecture and fact.

In his professionally valuable book To Tell You The Truth, Aidan White, who is also the General Secretary of the International Federation of Journalists, argues that before and during a conflict people have an even greater need for accurate, well checked information that will help them to understand the context and the mindsets of all those involved. He claims they need these insights so they can make judgments and potentially influence the course of events, at least in a democracy, by giving or withholding their support for the conflict.

According to him, to provide this essential service, journalists need the same coolness and objectivity that soldiers need on the battlefield. Claiming that too many journalists model their coverage of conflict on the strategy of First World War generals of charging over the top screaming death and defiance at the enemy, at least metaphorically, White rationalises that journalists who work in or near the battlefield see too much injury and death to promote a romantic patriotic view for long; but, in his opinion, those who link and front programmes from the safety of their media offices are

often the ones who shout loudest.

Following the recent attacks by the Al Shabaab terrorists in Mpeketoni and Mandera, Nairobi journalists presented the tragic stories in the most patriotic manner by latently calling for the elimination of the terror groups through all sorts of innuendos while the local journalists on the scene concentrated on hard facts substantiated by shocking pictures. Journalists’ impartiality becomes even more challenging when covering ethnic wars when the writers belong to one of the warring factions.

That must have been the reason why drafters of the Kenyan Code found it necessary to be very specific about the coverage of ethnic, religious and sectarian conflict and wants journalists to publish or broadcast news, views or comments on ethnic, religious or sectarian dispute only after proper verification of facts and to present them with due caution and restraint in a manner which is conducive to the creation of an atmosphere congenial to national harmony, amity and peace.

“bad news is good news and usually good news is no news unless of course it happens to the most powerful”

The drafters were particularly concerned with the provocative and alarming headlines which in their wisdom they thought should be avoided. They also believed news reports or commentaries about such conflicts should not be written or broadcast in a manner likely to inflame the passions, aggravate the tension or accentuate the strained relations between communities concerned. Equally so,

they believed, articles or broadcasts with the potential to exacerbate communal trouble should be avoided. Whenever a government is at war, all the media controlled by it goes to war with the government and fights the common enemy in the most unprofessional manner.

A good example is given by White who recalls that the ethnic wars in the former Yugoslavia which were fought between 1991 and 1999 when the Government controlled channels like Serbia TV became advocates for the war and not the reporters who covered that war. He also gives us another example of the second Gulf War which was fought between March 2003 and December 2011 when some Western media channels backed the US invasion of Iraq. To him media like Fox News, for example, abandoned all pretense at objectivity and become cheerleaders for the American forces and their allies.

Another scholar who has done some considerably admirable work on this field is Usha Sundar Harris who is a lecturer in the Media Department and the Centre for International Communication at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. After working as a print and television journalist in Fiji and Australia, the scholar published a though provoking policy brief which was prepared in conjunction with a symposium held April 9, 2004 in Sydney, Australia, to discuss how far economic concerns were implicated in internal strife within the countries of the region, and what sorts of strategies might offer promise for bringing about peaceful resolution of these problems.

Titled The Role of the Media in Reporting Conflicts, the brief discusses the news paradigms and the reporting of conflicts in the Pacific in which she says the prime news value of the media is conflict or disorder. Quoting a familiar adage in journalism of “bad news is good


news and usually good news is no news unless of course it happens to the most powerful” she argues that the media coverage is also event-driven. In other words, a coup or an outbreak of disease or a cyclone, according to her, would receive immediate coverage but the ongoing reconciliation efforts, or the rebuilding of the economy, which may take many years, won’t

receive the same coverage, if any.

May be the most controversial observation about the independence of the media as far as the coverage of wars is concerned is her suggestion that at the global level, the merger of media corporations has meant that the global flow of information is controlled by fewer and fewer media. The innuendo of that statement simply means proprietorial interference in editorial decision making process does inhibit the independence of media coverage of global conflicts.

At the time of writing this, a debate had erupted following efforts by the government to introduce new laws to fight terrorism in Kenya. Unfortunately, those efforts were seen by many in the media fraternity

as another attempt to muzzle the press by security personnel who have always resisted any attempts by the Fourth Estate to question their less than transparent activities which display all the hallmarks of camouflaged corruption.

Fortunate for Kenya, these attempts have been made elsewhere where there has been vehement resistance from professional

journalists. Writing a paper about such attempts made in the UK in 2008, Prof David McQueen of the Centre for Broadcasting History at Bournemouth University says relations between the British government and the BBC is often fraught at times of armed conflict, particularly in the absence of national consensus.

According to him, a pattern of pressure on and intimidation of the BBC underlies efforts by successive governments to set the agenda for reporting ‘in the national interest’. He maintains that the effects of such pressure is considerable and, some claim, has led to over-dependence on official and ‘establishment’ sources in the BBC’s coverage of conflicts.

Arguing that such over-dependence

is typified by the ‘flagship’ current affairs series Panorama which has been accused by current affairs practitioners and media analysts of generally reflecting a ‘Westminster consensus’ , he examines Panorama’s coverage of the invasion of Iraq to explore claims that Britain’s longest-running current affairs series largely reflects ‘elite opinion’.

Joe Kadhi is a former Managing Editor of the Daily Nation and now teaches Journalism students at the United States International University. He is also the chairman of the Editorial Board of the Media Observer. [email protected]


This article is informed by two recent incidents. One had to do with a sales girl in a boutique in Nairobi. She had a winning smile deserving some attention. She headed to me while holding a transparent, short night dress. Without any consultation, she placed it

against my body and pronounced her “words of wisdom”. “This is the sexiest nightie you could ever have. Buy it and watch the transformation in your man’s life.’’ The instructions continued …. “He will be coming home early; he will never let you down in bed…”

The debate would have continued had the question of her marital status not been raised. As it turned out, she was neither married nor engaged. On her own confession, her training on matters of sex and what makes a man tick was from the media: Internet, television, videos and magazines.

The second incident occurred during a talk on communication ethics attended by practicing and potential journalists. The participants were asked to carry out some mock coverage on two issues on the local scene. The first one was on the trip to The Hague by President Uhuru Kenyatta in October 2014 including his handing over of power to his deputy William Ruto and the rousing

welcome he received back home. The second one was on former Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s visit to the US in the first quarter of 2014 and his return to calls of ‘’Baba while you were away.’’ The participants were asked how they would cover the two issues professionally.

The hitherto unified, the happy group of participants broke into two camps. They could no longer recall the values of journalism they had just learnt nor could they clearly discuss any philosophical principles that would help them deal with the issues at hand. Tempers rose to a boiling point when it was suggested that they enter Rawl’s veil of ignorance. Rawl proposed in his principle that people could negotiate on equal terms without prejudice while behind the veil. The participants were advised to drop everything that divided them including political and party loyalties; in that case their loyalty to either Jubilee or CORD. Without any exception, the members said they were being asked to do the impossible. The two incidents pointed to some serious problems with Kenyans in general and the media in particular. In the first incident, the sales girl had acquired a tool from the media she could use on her customers without quite knowing the full implications of ‘’the politics of dressing.’’ As if by coincidence, cases of women being stripped in some parts of Kenya including Nairobi and Mombasa emerged in November 2014. The women were accused of indecent dressing comprising tight clothing, short skirts,

Will the media be the ultimate saviour?As terrorism and security challenges persist, the big question remains

whether journalists can promote peace and mediate in the existing and potential conflicts. MARTHA MBUGGUSS looks at why it is imperative that the media re-thinks its role.


Will the media be the ultimate saviour?As terrorism and security challenges persist, the big question remains

whether journalists can promote peace and mediate in the existing and potential conflicts. MARTHA MBUGGUSS looks at why it is imperative that the media re-thinks its role.

or showing too much body and cleavage. Ms Racheal Shebesh, the Nairobi Women rep, described the move as domestic violence, rape, sexual harassment, torture and abuse of women.

In what was turning out to be a gender battle, women who described themselves as Kilimani moms held a protest on November 17, 2014. During the protest named “My dress my choice,’’ women showed as much skin as they wished. There were loud calls for the government to formulate mechanisms of protecting women against humiliation on the basis of their dressing.

While the above case demonstrated a high level of intolerance on gender basis, the second one was about political intolerance. Different types of intolerance normally need just a slight trigger to turn into violence, murder and destruction. Protagonists for different causes cherish and rally media support to perpetuate their beliefs through the media. The demand for media involvement is likely to get louder as the world enters into a new dispensation, thanks to the new information technology that has led to ‘citizen journalism’.

[Objectivity is obviously a very central value in journalism and carries important characteristics of fairness, balance, avoidance of bias.]Citizen journalism is described as the process of gathering, writing, editing, producing and distributing of news and information by people who are not trained as professional reporters. Such news/information reach millions of people, whether the outcome is good or bad. It also competes with the information emanating from trained, professional journalists. In a nutshell, new media has created a new form of journalism which has in turn thrown challenges to and provided opportunities for professional journalists.

Among the most urgent issues worldwide generally and in Kenya at the moment is the spread of terrorism and insecurity. This has led to journalism trainers starting to think and research on how journalism can play a useful role in the face of a ‘’destructive foe.’’ Among the proposals raised by media professors is the introduction and emphasis of peace journalism which would fall in the broader genre of advocacy journalism.

The term advocacy journalism causes goose pimples in many journalists’ minds. They see it as a form of shallow thinking, censorship and a murderer of a much cherished

value of journalism, objectivity. Objectivity is obviously a very central value in journalism and carries important characteristics of fairness, balance, avoidance of bias. It calls upon a journalist not to be influenced by emotions, personal prejudices or bias. It helps journalists to be detached observers expected to be truthful messengers. A time, however, has come when the concept of objectivity is put to test by very painful experiences. How objective, for example, would a journalist or anybody else be if his whole family was wiped off by a suicide bomber? How unemotional would he be if he witnessed his neighbours’ necks being chopped off by some inhumane characters?

One can go on and on narrating some of the bizarre occurrences that have been taking place in the recent past in various parts of the world to show how shaky ‘objectivity’ is becoming while still recognising the need to uphold a high level of the same. Perhaps to contextualise the debate, we may need to ask ourselves about journalism in Kenya today in the face of heightened terror activities and an increasing amount of hate politics and ethnicity. Can the media be used to promote peace and mediate in the existing and potential conflicts?

There can be no easy answers to the questions above considering that the two concepts, i.e. objectivity and advocacy journalism have for long been put into two separate bags and are hardly seen as working together. Indeed, advocacy journalism has been considered to be a type of propaganda. Experts who have experimented with advocacy journalism, however, state that while supporting a point of view or cause, advocacy journalism is based on facts, follows the standards of journalism such as truthfulness, accuracy and fairness. It should therefore not be confused for propaganda. As the government formulates strategies to fight terrorism, including Bills that will affect the media, there is no harm in the media beginning to reconsider its role in a fast changing world.

The initial roles of informing, educating and entertaining might just need a microscopic review. Questions of what is beneficial or harmful to the audience must be addressed if the media has to remain relevant. The difference between the quack and the professional should be clear.

Dr Martha Mbugguss is a lecturer of Mass Communication at Africa Nazarene University and a member of the Editorial Board of the Media Observer [email protected]


EXPLORING PRIVATE SECURITY OPTIONSGlobalisation and failure by African countries to up their game and Western peacekeeping disengagement from the continent have all provided a new context within which one should view the importance of private security, writes GEORGE KEGORO.

President Uhuru Kenyatta’s recent announcement that security is now the private responsibility of citizens calls for public discussions regarding the forms arrangements for provision of private security can take. This article identifies the various options that can be considered. One of the most important types of private security arrangements in many societies is militias. The term has borne different meanings according to the time in history when used and also from society to society.

In its original sense, militia meant “the state, quality, condition, or activity of being a fighter or warrior.” It can be thought of as “combatant activity”, “the fighter frame of mind”, “the militant mode”, “the soldierly status”, or “the warrior way”. The contemporary understanding is a private citizen who responds to emergencies including those

involving law enforcement, and who often has to do so using arms. Militia developed from an ancient practice in England during the Anglo-Saxon period which dictated that all able-bodied men were liable to serve in one of two organisations: The posse comitatus, which was a group of men assembled on an ad hoc basis for the purpose of law enforcement and the second, fyrds, which was a military organisation established to maintain law and order in their neighbourhoods.

The evolution of militias in the United Kingdom developed in a context of mistrust between the monarchy and parliament, the former fearing that the establishment of a standing army during peace time would provide the king with the capacity to oppress the people. Parliament therefore sought to control the power of the king to maintain a standing army

during peace time and provided in the English Bill of Rights for the right of citizens to maintain militias as a counterweight against the royal standing army which was liable to oppress the people. The Bill of Rights further provided that the king required the approval of parliament to raise and maintain an army during times of peace.

In colonial-era America, militias were persons expected to provide emergency services using their own weapons, equipment or supplies and without the expectation of reward. The Militia Act of 1792 required each state to form a militia made up of all able-bodied white males of between the ages of 18 and 45 who were resident in the state. This was a continuation of the English fyrd tradition. From the late 1860s, private militias began to form themselves in different parts of the United


States including the White League in Louisiana in 1874, and the Red Shirts in Mississippi in 1875. These were open groups and espoused their beliefs openly unlike the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist militia, whose members and activities were secret.

The Militia Act of 1903 formalised the establishment of two categories of militia, being the organised militia which became the National Guard, and unorganised militia, made up of males between the ages of 17 and 45 years. The unorganised category of militia is private in nature, and its existence is not the subject of public arrangements. Each state in the US has at least one unorganised militia. The unorganised groups dedicate themselves to upholding the liberty of the citizens against whatever they regard to be a threat to such liberty. Some private militias actively promote the right to bear arms, which they see as necessary for the protection of the liberty of citizens.

African countries have attempted to establish reserve armies that would be similar in form and function, to the organised militias in the United States and other jurisdictions. India’s reserve army of 40,000 personnel which is supposed to serve a population of close to one billion people is grossly inadequate. Tanzania’s attempts to establish a militia have been more successful, and this was achieved by insistence on compulsory military service for a short period of time, for all young Tanzanian males. However, this tradition became unpopular and was the cause of student riots in the 1970s.

Apartheid South Africa also had a compulsory military service for all white males, which was equally unpopular. In the new South Africa, service in the reserve army is increasingly viewed as employment, rather than as a voluntary national service.

Here in Kenya, the closest resemblance to official militias is the National Youth Service. Originally conceived as an organisation that would provide life skills to street children, and although it does not bear arms, the service has become increasingly politicised under the Jubilee administration. The Kenya Police Reserve was also a major initiative for crime prevention and is still the model used in the far-flung parts of the country.

The traditional role of militia in the US is similar to the practices in Canada and Australia. However, as understood in Kenya, the term “militia” in popular parlance means vigilantes who have become a part of the country’s political process and who are also connected with efforts by citizens to protect themselves from crime.

One distinctive role played by militias in Kenya is in electoral politics. US political history saw the active participation of militias who, on behalf of the Democratic Party, were involved in the intimidation of voters, the perpetration of violence, including murder, to push Republicans out of office, prevent them from organising politically and to prevent freed slaves from participating in the electoral process. The role of militia in the electoral violence on behalf of the Democratic Party, led to their being described as “the military wing of the Democratic Party”. Another element of militia movements is of the new right-wing extremist variety made up of armed groups, which promote anti-establishment messages, and which are often associated with an ideology of conspiracy. The growth of this brand of militia groups represents one of the most significant social trends of the 1990s. Many militias are often Christians and justify their actions by claiming to be defenders of the Constitution.

Militia activity in Africa includes private security organisations and

contractors. The decline of the African state, which has increasingly become unable to occupy all the spaces that it formally occupied, has given rise to alternative players, who seek to fill the resulting void. The announcement by President Kenyatta is, in effect, an acknowledgment of this decline. Jakkie Cillier attributes the growing importance of private security contractors to the decline of the African state which has increasingly found itself unable to provide basic services to its people and therefore necessitating the intervention of private initiatives to fill the void that this has created. Cillier further asserts that private security companies are increasingly supplanting the primary responsibility of the state to provide both security and for lucrative multinational and domestic business activities.


Globalisation, the failure of African countries to achieve sustainable development, concomitant with the general weakening of the African state and Western peacekeeping disengagement from Africa after the Somali debacle, all provide a new context within which one should view the increasing importance of private security.

The discussion on private security arrangements is itself an important thematic area in relation to militias. In recent conflicts on the continent, private security contractors have played an important role, and academic literature argues the case for examining the place of private security contractors under International Humanitarian Law. It has been argued that where private security contractors are incorporated into national armies, they should be regarded as combatants for the purposes of international humanitarian law.

The role of mercenaries, as a category of militias, also forms the subject of attention in the continent. In the civil war in Sierra Leone mercenaries fought alongside the Sierra Leonean army and the British and were more efficient than the international peacekeeping forces in the enforcement of peace. According to Leslie Hough, the factors leading to their relatively higher levels of success included their clear peace-enforcement mandate, their unitary structure, superior training and relationship with the public and the incentive to win as efficiently as possible. Hough suggests that because of these reasons, a case now exists for considering the use of private security contractors to build the capacities of national armies, and also in bringing a quick end to violent

conflict whenever this occurs.

There is, however, a pervasive negative view of mercenaries around the continent, which is seen as armed opposition to the decolonization process, and which prevents a good-faith engagement with this group. Because of its specific historical relationship with mercenarism, one of the early steps by the independent South Africa government enacted the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act in 1998 which bars South Africans from serving as mercenaries.

Academic writers identify a role for and distinguish private security contractors from mercenaries. The former have diversified their roles in Africa and now provide, among other services, combat and operational support.

From this analysis, there are two possibilities. The first is to make security the responsibility of private citizens, as the President suggested. In that case, there would have to be a process of legitimising organisations which under the Prevention of Organised Crimes Act, are currently banned and to also encourage and facilitate the emergence of private militias around the country where these do not currently exist. Further, there would have to be a review of the right to bear arms, which is currently a monopoly of the state. An arms liberalisation regime would have to be discussed and organised. This arrangement would radically change the relationship between the state and citizens, and this is what the president is calling for.

The second broad alternative is to organise security around the county governments. It is possible to model this along the lines of the US Militia

Act of 1792, which required each state to form a militia. The specific proposal would be to establish an official militia in each county, made up of locals in the county and who would take responsibility for security. This model would give county governments local people greater say on their own security and would also unburden the national government from the responsibility for security, which it is currently unable to discharge effectively.

There would also have to be a discussion about the new role of the police, some of whose current responsibilities will go to county governments.

George Kegoro is a lawyer, columnist and Executive Director of the Kenyan Section of the International Commission of [email protected]


Devolution and conflicts: A guide for journalistsAs WASHINGTON MAKODINGO cautions, it is important that reporters, photographers and editors understand conflict dynamics in various hotspots since some are fought over mere historical perceptions that have little to do with facts.

For more than two decades, some parts of Kenya have been plagued

by conflicts, many of which have had their origin

in perceived historical injustices around land and scarce natural resources. A lot also coalesce around ethnic identities. Even though these problems have existed since independence, the scramble for multi-party democracy in the early 1990s heightened tension when some protagonists used the fight for pluralism to justify why they needed to be in power. They would go around telling their supporters they needed

to be in power to sort out those injustices once and for all.

As the clamour for a new constitution intensified in the early 2000s, the country moved towards consensus that most of these problems could only be solved through a devolved system of government. As a framework of governance, devolution seeks to transfer political, administrative and economic authority from the centre to local communities and seeks to promote popular participation, enhanced accountability and responsibility in the generation and management of resources.

Inevitably, devolution has also brought with it challenges and opportunities. For some counties,

devolution presents the best chance at solving local conflicts and yet for some, it has opened new avenues for conflicts. It is important that journalists understand conflict dynamics in various parts of Kenya to enable them report responsibly in a manner that de-escalates rather than inflame the conflicts. A key function of the devolved governments will be to end the cycle of conflicts that have plagued many of the areas now under their jurisdiction. Other than security which is still a function of the national government, the governors largely retain control of the underlying causes of conflicts in most of the conflict zones such as land, pasture, water and tribal or clan politics. If properly managed, a lot of the counties could very well put an

Senators at a retreat to discuss devolution.


end to the perennial conflicts that plague their counties.

However, this is also where the problem begins. Some governors were elected along tribal/clan lines. In most of these counties, the feelings of loss have not been taken too well especially by the minorities. The appointments to executive positions by the governors, in some instances, have not helped the situation as most of them have tended to reward their supporters who invariably also happen to be their clan/tribe-mates.

In reporting on conflict, it is important that journalists understand the conflict dynamics in different counties. In many instances, the reporting has been skewed towards one side of the conflict. This is usually as a result of the dominance of national opinion shapers by one side of the conflict. Several factors must be considered when reporting on conflict in Kenya.

Firstly, we need to understand the history of the conflict. In many conflict zones in Kenya, the history is a major part of the contestation. The history determines who has legitimate claim on the land and resources in a given area – a major driver of tension in nearly all conflicts in Kenya.

In conflict zones in Kenya, history of an area varies widely depending on who is telling the story, a factor that journalists must consider when reporting.

The recent conflict in Moyale was partly as a result of the contestation on the ownership of an area known as Funan Nyata claimed by the Borana and Gabbra. In a county where access to limited pasture and water often determines livelihoods, hostilities regularly flare up whenever one group is seen to encroach on land considered by their counterparts as theirs. In Trans Nzoia, depending on which set of elders you talk to, Kitale and its environs ancestrally belong to either the Bukusu or Sabaot. The

same story is repeated in Bungoma County. Depending on which set of elders you talk to, the county headquarters, Bungoma, belongs to either Bukusu or Sabaot. In fact, the Sabaot claim the town is named after one of their sub-tribes known as Bungomek. A journalist that reports assertions from either of these sides could actually be helping the cause of one community against the other.

Secondly, we need to be careful when reporting on factual statistics. Statements like “the majority clan A” could be areas of contestation. Numbers often determine resource allocation in arid areas that receive food aid. In several instances, hostilities have been reported whenever one group perceives that their “fewer” counterparts from another clan have received more food aid than they deserve. An example of where this is a major issue is in Marsabit County. For a long time, the media and almost everyone else has reported on “the majority Borana”. This has in turn given the Borana legitimate expectations of conquest in all numerical contests. It was therefore unsurprising that the community reacted with shock when they lost major positions in the March 2013 elections. Statistically, the Borana are only slightly more than the Gabbra in Marsabit. As a whole, they constitute less than a third of the population of the county. Their numbers may be more than any other single community, but they are certainly not the majority. Another example where this was seen was in Tana River where the media kept referring to “the majority Pokomo”. At about 35 per cent, they are indeed the single largest community. Again, they are definitely not the majority in Tana River as a whole – a realisation that many analysts opine could have contributed to the massacres in 2012.

[As devolution takes root, another factor we must consider is the power of perception and “feelings”. ……]

Post 2007, Mandera Central constituency broke into a five-year cycle of violence after a Degodia candidate won a seat in an area where the Garre population was perceived to be superior. Even though this particular assertion was true, the Garre did not take into consideration the fact that they fielded several candidates against a single Degodia candidate.

Still on numbers, several of those conflict-hotspots and conflict-prone counties also happen to have minority tribes or clans. In areas where the people wielding power have often favoured their tribes or clans when dealing with scarce resources, this is a major concern. A continuous narrative of their lack of numbers has led most of them to believe that they stand very little chance of ascending to power through legitimate means. As a result, quite a number of them see violence as their only means of gaining power. Nationally, we will soon have to deal with our own “tyranny of numbers”. Most people participate in elections only because they have legitimate expectations of their candidates winning. For how long do we think people will continue supporting elections in which their candidates stand no chance of winning before they resort to less than legitimate ways of addressing their grievances?

Thirdly, we should be careful when reporting on the causes of conflicts. Many a times, a journalist has reported that “…the conflict started when Community A attacked Community B”. In intractable conflicts like the ones we see in Northern


Kenya and North Rift, a statement like this is almost always incorrect. Some of these conflicts have been going on for so long that what is seen as an initial attack by Community A could actually be a retaliatory attack for

one carried out by the opposing side many weeks or even months back. In many instances, in Northern Kenya where livestock replacements and blood ransom is paid to the victims of raids, failure to comply with the terms could in itself lead to a flare-up of conflict. In such a scenario, it is very difficult to state with certainty who started the attacks: the clan that attacked after agreement was breached or the ones that attacked originally and failed to pay?

In addition, journalists should interrogate causes of conflicts beyond the embedded narratives. One of the major drivers of conflicts in North Rift and Northern Kenya is cattle theft disguised as cattle rustling. This new “cattle-rustling” is very different from the age-old practice whose major motivation was restocking and dowry payments for morans. Today, cattle are stolen and within hours, meat from those cattle is served in households in Nairobi. This is what

we call “commercialisation of cattle-rustling”.

In fact, in most instances when government carries out “operations” to weed out the perpetrators, the

actual perpetrators could be issuing press statements in Nairobi either in support or denouncing such operations.

As devolution takes root, another factor we must consider is the power of perception and “feelings”. Many conflicts the world over are fought over perceptions that have very little to do with facts as they are. Kenya is no different. The feeling of a stolen election could lead to catastrophic violence as seen in the post-election violence of 2007/2008. Most Kenyans believe they can only benefit from a government when one of them is in it. It would be very difficult to convince the Sabaot in Bungoma County that they are the biggest beneficiary in a county government they perceive to be dominated by Bukusus.

On the other hand, some Bukusus are convinced that the Sabaots have gotten more than they deserve. In Migori County, some Luos will tell

you the Kuria are disproportionately benefitting from the County Government just because they happen to hold three major positions (Senator, Deputy Governor and Women Representative). Similarly,

some Kuria will hold the same line as that of the Sabaot in Bungoma. Journalists would do themselves a favour by recognising these perceptions to avoid the trap of being seen to be supportive of one side.

And finally, the need for knowledge cannot be overemphasised. There is enough information out there about conflicts in different parts of Kenya. Journalists should make effort to have enough background information of those conflicts before preparing stories on them. This would go a long way in ensuring they present a story in a manner that “does no harm” to a conflict.

Dr Washington Makodingo is a Conflict Analysis, Democracy and Governance [email protected]


The history of Kenya has been largely about land conflicts. Even the struggle for independence was triggered by the European alienation of African land during the colonial period. The Mau Mau rebellion of the 1950s, which ushered in independence in

1963, was partly about getting the stolen land back to rightful owners. But as the white settlers left the country, the land they had occupied was acquired by individual Africans on a willing-seller willing-buyer basis or through government-sponsored settlement schemes. Those transactions did not eliminate land conflicts which flared up sporadically in the post-independence years, particularly in the 1990s, and continue up to this day though on a smaller scale.

The major cause of the post-independence land conflicts is what has been called “historical injustice”. Some ethnic communities feel aggrieved that what they call their ancestral lands were not returned to them after the departure of the white settlers. Other causes of the conflicts are competition over limited resources including water and grazing, particularly among the pastoral communities and in areas where pastoral and agricultural communities live side by side; large numbers of landless people who have settled on privately-owned land or forest reserve; and people who have been displaced through ethnic clashes.

Land conflicts in Kenya reached a new high during the 2007/8 post-election violence particularly in the Rift Valley where thousands of people were either killed or displaced. Land conflicts have also been compounded by corruption, land-grabbing by the elite and chaotic land registration systems. Most of the conflicts have occurred in the Rift Valley that formed the major part of the white highlands and the Coast where many non-locals acquired land thus rendering many squatters.

In view of the genesis and prevalence of land conflicts in Kenya, the role of the media in reporting the conflicts is tremendously important. The media has the power to influence and mitigate the nature and development of the conflicts, even to nip them in the bud. As the only source of possibly reliable information on the conflicts, the media has a clear role to play in the management and resolution of the land conflicts. That role also depends on the public perception and trust of the media.

[It is clear that for the media to improve the quality of land conflict reporting the journalists they deploy must have the skills and knowledge to be able to identify the causes of the conflict]

Sticky issue: Land conflicts and the Fourth EstateIn view of the prevalence of land conflicts in Kenya, the role of the Fourth Estate is enormous. The media has the power to influence and mitigate the nature and development of conflicts, even to nip them in the bud. PETER MWAURA explains why journalists should go beyound mere “he said” reporting.


The importance of the media – though sometimes it is over-exaggerated – cannot be gainsaid. “Journalists are like doctors. If they do not treat people well, they die”, said the vice-chairman of the Mau Narok Peace Committee while speaking at a community and media peace forum in Tipis, Narok, in 2011. In this forum, more than 70 members of the Kikuyu and Maasai communities critiqued the way journalists cover land disputes in their area. The two communities had recently fought over a 2,400 -acre piece of land the Government bought from a white farmer to relocate some of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Nakuru. The Maasai expected the land to be handed back to them as they claimed it was their ancestral land.

The forum participants mentioned corruption, influence of media ownership, lack of research on the conflict as some of the key issues that affect the way the media reports land conflicts. Those issues seem to be present not only in reporting land conflicts but also in most other issues. But those issues identified by the forum participants seem to have the greatest impact on reporting land conflicts.

Land is a sensitive subject in this country. It is intertwined with politics and is the single most important reason for tribal clashes. Media coverage of land issues and conflicts can therefore be critical in solving or compounding the conflicts because of the power of the media in influencing what people think and do about those conflicts.

One of the keys issues mentioned by the participants in the forum at Tipis is lack of research on the conflict. This seems to be the most common failure of the media in covering land conflicts. The reporting of the current controversy over the 134-acre land in Karen, Nairobi, illustrates this point well. Despites tens of thousands of words written about the controversy the media has not been able to tell the public who the true owners of the land are. The media coverage has so far not shed any light on the real facts of the case to enable the public to make its own informed judgment of the controversy. Admittedly, the controversy is complex and shrouded in mystery and intrigue but it is not beyond enterprising and investigative journalists to unravel.

The media coverage of land conflicts has been largely characterised by a tendency to report the fire-and-brimstone of a conflict without providing the context of the conflict, explaining its causes and counter-checking claims to ensure accuracy. In general, media reports of land conflicts rarely go beyond merely reporting the“he said, she said”.

The media reports typically provide little understanding or education about the land conflicts. The assumption here is that if the media reported a problem or conflict


in-depth, that would go a long way in helping the public to understand the conflict and therefore to manage or resolve the conflict. To illustrate this, let us take one of the earliest land conflicts in independent Kenya, the 1984 Kapkangani clashes. The conflict involved the Nandi and Luhya living in the area that lies between Kakamega and Kapsabet, a division of the Nandi District now known as the Nandi County. The clashes were given very little coverage and even then the media did not explain the real causes of the conflict.

The real reasons for the conflict, according to an official who investigated the conflict, was that a number of Nandi sold their smallholdings in Kapkangani to members of the Luhya community from Kaimos so that they can use the money so raised to buy bigger holdings in the former white highlands in Uasin Gishu District from the departing white farmers. Years later a local politician—for his own political reasons--incited local youths to reclaim the land arguing that their fathers did not sell the land but only rented it. Once those facts were made

public it was then possible to nip the conflict in the bud before it could escalate.

Most of the land clashes have taken place in the Rift Valley, where most of the white farmers settled. Again, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to show that many of the clashes could have been contained if they had been reported in-depth by the media, thus providing the public and the participants with the relevant facts and meaningful information.

The catalogue of conflicts is long. What is short is the media coverage of the conflicts. “A Toolbox for Journalists”, published in March 2012 by the Conflict Sensitive Journalism Project, Rhodes University, Grahamstown (South Africa), provides many useful suggestions on how the media can improve the quality

of their coverage of conflicts. In our case, it is clear that for the media to improve the quality of land conflict reporting the journalists they deploy must have the skills and knowledge to be able to identify the causes of the conflict, report the different stages of the conflict development and what happens as the conflict escalates. It is important at all times to cover not only the aggravating voices but also the moderating voices in the conflict, as well as any attempts in managing and resolving the conflict. But most importantly, the journalists must recognize when violence is likely to occur and warn of the dangers before the conflict explodes or escalates to dangerous levels.

According to the toolbox, if journalists report land conflicts in-depth, they are likely to provide a channel for communication between the parties and provide the parties with the information they need to make wise decisions in managing and resolving the conflict.Journalists can also educate the parties about ways of managing and resolving the conflict, making it possible for parties to trust each other, thus counteracting misperceptions. In practice, this calls for analysing the conflict, identifying the underlying interests of issues, allowing parties to express their emotions, empowering the parties and providing face-saving and consensus building.

The journalist can make a difference by reporting fairly, accurately, and responsibly. To do that the journalist must understand the causes of conflict, the dynamics of conflict escalation and how conflicts can be addressed. The more a journalist understands a conflict, the better equipped he will be to report on the events and processes in way that enhances the likelihood of the parties to achieve peaceful solutions.

The journalist must be aware of the contributions he can make to promote peace. He should also become conscious of how his reporting can impact negatively on the conflict. The toolbox rightly points out that inaccurate reports, biased coverage (intentional or not), sensationalism and in some instances outright propaganda can exacerbate conflict and result in loss of life and destruction of property.

Peter Mwaura is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Communication and Journalism, Kenya Methodist University and a former member of the Media Council of Kenya’s Complaints Commission. [email protected]


Linking national values, media and peaceAs PROF MACHARIA MUNENE explains, media houses do not operate in isolation. They are critical components of state, operate within context of state, and have interests in the well-being of states.

There are three concepts at play that need serious consideration on how they interact with each other. These are national values, the media, and peace. Of the three, the media is the link between the other two and also instruments for the others to use. The most critical of

these is ‘national values’ since they help determine the nature and type of media and the ability of the media to promote peace.

The promotion of peace is often based on the assumption that peace is an end in itself rather than a means to an end. If peace is a means to an end, what then is that desired end? That end is the well-being and prosperity of people.

The interplay of the three concepts affects that well-being and calls for an intellectual excursion into what the ideal situation should be.

States and national values

That ideal situation should be the preservation of a living environment that advances and protects the collective interests/values of a given people in specified places. That place is a geopolitical unit politically recognised territorial boundaries called state.

Over time, states have acquired a self-justification that make them appear, and are then assumed, to be natural as they struggle to survive as viable entities. It is within the context of state that peoples are administered, conduct their socio-economic affairs, and discuss national interests. Critical among them are national values for which the people in that state stand.

The media play pivotal roles in ensuring people understand national values and peace.


By their very nature, states seek to protect their interests from all types of threats whether internal or external. These interests include sovereignty, territory, economy, beliefs, governance and tools of opinion making.

Two critical tools of advancing and protecting national values are the educational system and the media. How well educationists and media operators understand and internalise the national values affect their ability to advance and defend those values. It is within the context of states that each media house operates, is licensed as a business, and claims to belong.

The media discourse

The media are critical components of state, operate within the context of state, and have interests in the well-being of particular states. Ordinarily, the term media refers to the tools of journalism, meaning the print, radio, and television that report on events and keep records of those events.

In theory, journalism is a profession whose purpose is to keep a public journal for public consumption and record. But then, why keep journals and records and for what purpose? The purpose, it turns out, is to perpetuate beneficial values within the context of given society or state, for memory or for people to know where they may be going wrong and rectify.

It goes beyond record keeping. It is also to entertain and educate while informing. Most important it is to empower the recipient of information to defend and advance national interests. As an agent of empowerment, journalism becomes very powerful, what Edmund Burke termed the Fourth Estate, and has capacity to build or destroy.

The capacity to build and destroy makes the media extremely powerful and prone to misuse as they are turned into tools of settling scores whether political or commercial, national or international. This raises the question of how media practitioners perceive their role in society. Do they see themselves as journalistic technicians without concern over the ramifications of their activities, or are they team players in the promotion of values and well-being.

The distinction is important since those who go beyond being technicians embrace intellectual rigour, deep reflection, and self-questioning on the effect of decisions on society. They are conscious of professional ethics and do not assume inherent hostility to the state or any other entity. Only people engaging in that kind of reflection can be useful in promoting the well-being of that society and protecting its values.

But then different challenges come up as to the type of media in consideration and the interests they propagate. Over time, the number of instruments qualifying to be media has increased and many defy the idea of ethics in journalism. These range from alternative print media to cyber space social media. These have made it difficult to have proper framework in a place on how the media can advance and protect national values. Few operators in the social media mode, in their cyber interactions, take responsibility for the damage done. And that damage is at times deliberate both locally and internationally. When that happens, ethics become irrelevant in pursuit of interests that are dear to the media controller.

This brings up the issue of the media and international power games in which some countries use their media strength to destabilise others, those with less capacity to protect their interests from international media attacks.

Except for the very powerful countries that can close cyber operations, other states remain at the mercy of cyber pirates, terrorists, and coup masterminds to destroy their values, governance, and ways of life. It

happens with the mainstream print and electronic media as well as with the social media.

This makes international media, mainstream and cyber-social, instruments of geopolitical manipulations empowering the owners to control the rest. In as much as the media in a given weak country may want to safeguard what they consider to be their values, they end up at the mercy of the powerful, those with capacity to jam the local media and to unleash cyber warfare on the target state. This is especially so when the local


media are highly dependent on “international” media for varieties of things. To a large extent, the “Arab Spring” in the Middle East was a consequence of targeting by the international media, mainstream and cyber. In that sense, the media become tools of international control and destruction rather than promotion of peace. Kenya has occasionally appeared to be a target of such global media operations.

The challenge of peace

Since the media operate in the context of state and its considered national values, they have interests in ensuring that those values are protected especially from external threats that end destabilising peace by creating un-peace. The media need enabling environments within which to operate and that environment is the one of peace within given spaces. The term peace is replete has many angles and is closely related to conflict. Although the two terms, peace and conflict are symbiotic, peace follows conflicts and is a derivative of conflict. In this sense, peace is the management of those conflicts in order to minimise the hurt associated with the conflicts. Since peace does not exist in itself, the amount of peace to be enjoyed in a place depends on how well particular peoples work for it by managing their negative conflicts.

The subject of peace is also a touchy one and occupies the minds of many people due to three different factors. First is the fact that people cannot and do not live in isolation from each other. They have to be together and in the process of being together they end up quarrelling or being in conflict. Second is the natural desire by various people to want to get their way without having to suffer in the process.

Getting one’s way is often at the expense of other people who in turn try to resist. Third is the factor of lamentations and regrets when things go wrong and suffering becomes the order of the day. The three factors are natural, meaning that conflict is natural because people will seek to associate with each other, will try to outdo each other, and will always regret when things go wrong. To escape the consequences of the three factors combined, people then talk a lot about peace as an escape strategy from natural condition of conflicts.

[The media, being part and parcel of given states, have obligation to help those states manage negative conflicts and peace]

Although peace is in many ways a desired end to the natural condition of negative conflict, it is not an end in itself. It is simply a means to an end which is the well-being, prosperity, and sense of safety for people in a

state. All organs of state, and the media are organs of state, have an obligation to support developments that encourage successful management of negative conflicts, meaning peace, so as to enable citizens to enjoy good life based on their national values.

Values, media, and peace

Every state or society strives to look after the interests of its people which include the national values. Values help to distinguish one type of people from others and account for specific identities that each person in the place relates to. Among the tools for propagating and protecting values are the media of all kind which, if the practitioners do not internalise those values, then become tools of value destruction. The media, being part and parcel of given states, have obligation to help those states manage negative conflicts and peace, as a means of ensuring national well-being. The key thing, therefore, is the identification of what the national values are and then getting all the people involved to internalise those values.

The media play pivotal roles in ensuring people understand those values, give them identity, minimise social, economic, and political frictions, and create environment for peace. The media, unless they are external, do not operate outside the state and its national values; they have direct self interest in promoting peace. In itself, peace within the state and the neighbourhood is a means to the desired end of prosperity, and sense of security.

Professor Macharia Munene teaches History and International Relations at the United States International University Africa. He is also a columnist with the Nation Media Group’s Business [email protected]


According to the unpublished book Conflict Sensitive Reporting: A Handbook for Kenyan Journalists 2013, conflict is also always about change. Among other things, it’s about people trying to meet unfulfilled needs, enhance their influence,

defend their identities, gain increased access to resources and reduce inequalities and injustice. It is an important driver of change and change is at the heart of almost all reporting. It’s what makes news. Journalism is about the impact change has on individuals, communities, groups and nations, political structures, economies and the natural environment. People rely on journalists to help orientate themselves in the world around them and respond to shifting social and political environments.

People also rely on information they get from journalists in deciding how to react to conflict as well as how they should feel about others in the conflict. Not only must journalists be aware of the contributions they can make to promoting peace and conflict, they should also be

conscious of how their reporting can impact on conflict.

War and conflict has always impacted men and women in different ways, but possibly never more so than in contemporary conflicts. While women remain a minority of combatants and perpetrators of conflict, they increasingly suffer the greatest harm. It is noted that in contemporary conflicts, as much as 90 per cent of casualties are among civilians, most of whom are women and children. Women in war-torn societies can face specific and devastating forms of sexual violence, which are sometimes deployed systematically to achieve military or political objectives.

The media must place in their stories a comparative analysis of how war and conflict is affecting women in Africa, particularly conflict among communities. While previously communities would engage in war, sparing women and children, they have now become the main targets in settling scores. Women and children are killed even when the protagonists are fighting over cattle, pasture and water in which they have no ownership or say. Women today are the first to be affected by infrastructure breakdown during times of conflict, as

Women, conflict and the missing media linkFor journalists to effectively cover conflict and women, argues JANE GODIA, effort must be made to rethink news coverage by engaging a gender-sensitive lens in reporting conflict.


they struggle to keep families together and care for the wounded. On so many occasions, during such times, women may also be forced to turn to sexual exploitation in order to survive and support their families.

However, when it comes to women, conflict and media, journalists and editors have most of the time failed to get it right. The media is the platform used to communicate messages during conflict and peace building. However, women’s unequal access to media may mean their interests, needs and perspectives are not represented.

[Reporting war and conflict is treated as a man’s business]During conflict, mainstream media tends to focus on the elite, where women traditionally are scarcely represented. War, armed conflict and security policy, for instance, have always been male domains where women’s voices have been neglected and almost ridiculed. This is because in most media houses, female journalists are never given the opportunity to report conflict which is considered hard news, and mostly seen as “too tough a beat” for women to cover. Male journalists who are sent to cover conflict do so from a male perspective and often fail to pick out gender perspectives of the conflict.

For instance, in the developed war such as the US, women in television networks and print media houses tend to do a lot of war coverage. It is noted that in American media, while men concentrate on hard-edged war stories looking at strategy, weapons, deployment, politics and battlefield, the stories by women journalists often concentrate on war victims, military families, cost of war and profiteering as well as rape and human rights.

Yet in Africa, Kenya included, the situation is so different. Reporting war and conflict is treated as a man’s business, with media managers forgetting that there are many dimensions in a conflict that will come out clearly to a woman than they would to a man. For instance, the killings that have been going on in Mandera have left more than 60 men dead. Most of them are married. No media house has ever thought of covering the perspective that in the wake of the terrorism in Northern Kenya, a huge number of widows are being left behind.

Mbugua wa Mungai, in Remembering Kenya: Identity, Culture and Freedom notes: “Women and their role in peace building has been overlooked by the media. Women’s experiences and contributions economically, politically and even in peace building are erased by

media practitioners by the way they choose to represent women, largely as victims.” Mungai says: “Media have the potential for being formidable agents of peace. However, this is impossible when certain voices are excluded and or silenced. Recognising that women experience war and conflict differently from men, could enhance media coverage of the same.” Mungai reiterates: “Media take women for granted, erase them from any economic, peace building and other development dialogues, see them as victims of war and use patriarchal lens when covering them.”

The media has failed to recognise the role of women in conflict and peace building. For media to effectively cover conflict and women, there must be a rethinking in coverage by engaging gender-sensitive lens and analysis in reporting conflict. A gender-sensitive perspective on decision making and political leadership as well as conflict resolution, peace building and rehabilitation is important to be covered in the media. According to UNESCO, women bring to the cause of peace among people and nations, distinctive experiences, competence and perspectives. UNESCO notes women’s role in giving and sustaining life, which has provided them with skills and insights essential to peaceful human relations and social development. It reiterates that women subscribe less readily than men to the myth of the efficacy of violence and they bring a new breadth of vision to a joint effort of moving from a culture of war and conflict towards peace.

During war and conflict it is women who are largely responsible for the survival of communities. It is also common that women instigate peace initiatives that transgress borders. However, these initiatives do not receive attention from the media. For instance, it is women in Northern Kenya who initiated peace efforts that led to the Modogashe Peace Declaration. This has been picked by the government as a best practice and is being used in the formation of District Peace Committees, now known as County Peace Committees, which have also incorporated affirmative action to ensure women’s voices are included in peace building.

[While war journalism is gender blind, peace journalism is gender aware]According to Caroline Sweetman in Gender, Peace Building and Reconstruction: “. . . that because girls and women bear heavy responsibilities for building social


and cultural infrastructure, and are significantly affected by post-war decisions, they must be publicly recognised and empowered as key actors. Yet asking women and girls for their views on how post-construction should be planned and implemented is almost never a part of national, local, regional or international agenda. Further, their specific interests are seldom acknowledged in peace accords even when newly created constitutions guarantee equal rights.”

Institutions such as the United Nations Security Council have noted the huge role that women play in peace building, and hence the reason it has passed several resolutions that recognise the role of women in conflict resolution and peace building. The landmark resolution 1325 of 2000 was the first to call on UN member states to consider women’s role in peace building and conflict resolution.

UN Security Resolution 1325 urges all actors to increase participation of women and incorporate gender perspectives in all UN peace and security efforts. It also calls on parties to conflict to take measures to protect women and girls from gender-based violence, particularly rape and other forms of sexual abuse, in situations of armed conflict. The media must recognise, as is noted by the security resolutions, that during conflicts, women’s security is often severely compromised, and they suffer increased violations of their rights.

While war journalism is gender blind, peace journalism is gender aware. The media can be more than just news. It can contribute much to gender parity and peace building in many ways. By engendering media, reporting of conflict and peace will also change. Like UNSECO in the preamble of its constitution declares: “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.”

This means the media has the ability to change

the dynamics of conflict and enhance the public’s understanding of it. This can be done by promoting gender equality by increasing the participation of women in expression and decision making through the media.

Building a peaceful future depends in part on ensuring people understand how to resolve conflict without violence and rejecting gender stereotyping. The media should promote balanced and non-stereotyped portrayal of women in conflict as well as in peace building.

Jane Godia is a Gender and Media Expert and serves as Managing Editor at African Woman and Child Feature Service (AWCFS). [email protected]

Women at a demonstration in Nairobi over rise in sexual assault cases.

Women are hard-hit in conflict situations.


Alarm over wanton attacks on journalistsIn the wake sustained assault against media workers reporting from conflict situations, MWENDA MBIJIWE explores why the international community has to re-evaluate journalists’ protection to allow for better safeguards.

The years 2011 and 2012 were among the most deadly for journalists reporting from conflict situations worldwide. The numbers of assaults, arrests and attacks have been on a constant rise and portray a dramatic image of the journalistic profession. In light of the increasing threats

in armed conflicts, being a war reporter has become an inherently dangerous task. It is therefore essential that the international community re-evaluates journalists’ protections in armed conflicts to allow for better safeguards and consequently fewer casualties in future.

They go places the people cannot and bear witness. An attack on a journalist was a proxy for an attack on the people and their right to information. Today, average citizens with cell phones and cameras also took part in journalism. The threat to them could be just as great as

the threat to professional journalists. Regardless of their essential role and responsibility, the number of journalists who disappear, are threatened, arrested, mistreated and or killed is on a constant rise. It is not only the loss of lives as collateral damage during military operations that make journalists’ jobs in conflicts so dangerous, but also targeted attacks, as well as the constant danger of being kidnapped, arrested or accused of espionage.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported in 2011 that at least 46 journalists died due to their work. Seventeen died on dangerous assignments and eight in combat situations, mostly during the uprisings in the Arab world. The number of journalists imprisoned in 2011 reached its highest level since 1996, with 179 journalists being detained worldwide. This is a trend that corresponds to the increasing dangers and difficulties that journalists face, and which is further illustrated by the fact that 35 per cent of all journalists killed covered

stories related to wars and conflicts.


[Freedom of expression applies on the Internet as it does to all means of communication.]The Internet has had a transforming effect on societies, giving new or enhanced voice to community media, citizen journalists, bloggers and other users, as well as professional journalists. However, as the importance of those activities has grown and added greatly to the pluralism of reporting, online journalists, bloggers and Internet users have increasingly become targets of violence and of spurious allegations of criminal behaviour intended to silence them.

Freedom of expression applies on the Internet as it does to all means of communication. Violence, harassment and intimidation directed against journalists represent an attack on democracy itself. They have the effect of stifling freedom of the media and freedom of expression, depriving populations of the ability to make informed decisions about their lives.

Without safe working conditions, journalists cannot write or report freely and independently; the safety of the media is a precondition for free media. The safety of a journalist must always be a priority. Guaranteeing the safety of journalists involves everyone in the society; governments, NGOs and even individuals.

The Media Council of Kenya was part of the “media working group” that developed a safety and protection protocol and manual for journalists in Kenya. The project was funded by the Kenya Media Programme, which is a programme of the Dutch humanist organisation, HIVOS. The project was premised on the increasing cases of harassment and threats to journalists across the country which made them vulnerable while in the course of their duty while at the same time noting that most of media houses in Kenya do not have safety and protection measures for their staff.

[The Kenya Media Working Group has published a Protocol on the Safety and Protection of Journalists in Kenya ]The idea to undertake the project was arrived at after a national baseline survey for the protection of journalists conducted by stakeholders led the Media Council of Kenya in 2013. The manual has been prepared to

respond to the needs of the media and society.

The safety manual is being offered as a living document, to be adjusted and updated to respond to the inevitable changes in society. The project is divided into two parts. The first is a national protocol, which sets the framework for the safety guide.

The Media Council of Kenya is a key member of the working group owing to its place as the body mandated with ensuring the protection of the rights and privileges of journalists in the performance of their duties.

Under the Enhancing and Up-scaling Media Safety and Journalistic Professionalism in Kenya project, the Media Council of Kenya with support from International Media Support (IMS) responds to the needs for mechanism and capacities related to ensuring the safety and protection of media practitioners in Kenya.

Thus, the Kenya Media Working Group has published a Protocol on the Safety and Protection of Journalists in Kenya. This safety manual, published in English and Swahili, contains essential guidelines towards ensuring the general safety and security of journalists. It aims to provide journalists and media houses with tips and tools that may be useful for improving their protection and security. In Kenya, the working environment for journalists has become increasingly hostile. This safety manual thus responds to the challenges faced by Kenyan journalists and addresses the gap between existing journalist support initiatives and their practical needs and challenges.

Under the project, a number of journalists have been trained on safety and security. The Council also runs a modest safety fund for journalists in distress, counselling of traumatised journalists as well as developing of a safety strategy for journalists among other initiatives. Together with the manual, journalists have been attending workshops, seminars and other trainings on security. In 2012, Article 19 Journalists and human rights defenders from Eritrea, Rwanda and Somalia face particular security challenges, yet they have few skills and little knowledge about how to best protect themselves and how to minimize risks that they may face in the course of their work. The training has been designed to help them to safely continue do their important work. The article has continued to facilitate more training with regards to safety and security when journalists are covering conflicts.

Protecting journalists when covering conflicts has received response globally. A number of organisations have been formed, with the sole purpose of addressing this issue. A major player is the United Nations


Organisation. In response to rising global concerns, a UN inter-agency meeting involving all the relevant specialised agencies and programmes of the UN was held in Paris in September 2011 to draw up a plan of action to improve the safety of journalists and to counter impunity.

As governments and organisations intervene on this security matter, journalists have a major role to play in it. They should be equipped with adequate knowledge and techniques of their safety. For example, 28 journalists from Ukraine were trained on safe and responsible reporting in hostile and crisis situations on 11 September 2014. The training course, organised by the OSCE project coordinator in Ukraine, was held upon the request of the National Union of Journalists and the Independent Media Trade Union.

Protecting journalists covering conflicts is not just about freedom of information and other rights. It plays a role in de-escalating conflicts. Many people believe that the media coverage of the conflict played a key role in turning US public opinion against the war in Vietnam. Lack of popular support eventually forced the US to withdraw from that conflict. One seminar participant suggested that the constant live coverage in the early stages of the Yugoslavian conflict helped to contain that conflict by allowing the parties to publicly vent their emotions and

positions.

The media can offer better communication with and better information regarding the adversary. By allowing each side to see the other relatively directly, by bringing the opponent into our living-rooms, the media can help to prevent the demonization of the other side.

Considering the traditional role of the media as reporters of the truth, play an essential role in international conflicts. Key function of the media is to give the public the information necessary to make good decisions, which is why it is imperative to journalists have overall security on the job.

Mwenda Mbijiwe, is a security consultant and CEO of Eye On Security. He is a former Kenya Air Force soldier. [email protected]


The recent killings in Northern Kenya have shocked, and hopefully awoken the world from slumber. On November 21, attackers stopped a Nairobi-bound bus and killed 28 passengers. On December 1, suspected Al Shabaab fighters raided a quarry in Mandera and killed 36 people.

The fact that Al Shabaab claimed responsibility for the killings, just like it did with the attacks in Lamu and Tana River counties at the Coast, is good and bad news. Good because it saved Kenyans from the usual blame game and ethnic suspicion that comes with such killings. It also helped focus the country to the immediate and real threat that is terrorism. But the fact that Al Shabaab claimed responsibility for it has revealed a negative side to Kenya’s security conundrum. One is that, while Kenya has had a serious security challenge for over a decade now, everyone now seems to think Al Shabaab is the only source of insecurity. Further, government officials and the public alike are now focusing on dealing with terrorism in a very narrow way rather than looking at the past failures of the security systems.

One of the most worrying reactions from the government has been to try and amend laws and expand police powers to kill, detain and seize property. This is dangerous because, first, it has the potential to claw back on the gains realised over the past decade, and secondly, especially on media and civil society, there is the big risk of restricting Kenyan media space and freedom of expression. The second negative aspect of Al Shabaab taking responsibility is that the country, and thus the media, seems to have forgotten about the age old problems of North Eastern Kenya that have contributed to insecurity there. There is no doubt that historical neglect of the north has contributed in a big way.

A glance at the former eight provinces that made Kenya until 2010 when the country passed a new Constitution reveals the effect of the neglect. North Eastern Province was the largest of the eight, yet it lacked basic infrastructure such as roads, health facilities, schools, electricity and other communication facilities. The locals don’t even view themselves as being part of Kenya. In

Why a secure north may still be a mirageBy failing to highlight problems of Northern Kenya counties and basically giving them what we would call a blackout, the media is in a big way contributing the sorry state of affairs in the region, writes OTSIENO NAMWAYA.


fact, those who travel from Garissa, slightly more than 350kms, to Nairobi always say they are going to Kenya. The media, by failing to highlight the problems of the north and basically giving it what we would call a blackout, has contributed to this sense of neglect.

[Al Shabaab is actually only a recent addition to the insecurity in the north.]But then the media might not be entirely to blame. Insecurity in the north has not started with Al Shabaab. The north has been insecure since 1963. The security of individual journalists operating in the north is never assured. The difficulties journalists there have to go through to get a story is unimaginable given the poor infrastructure. For the same reason, the farthest newspapers reach in time is Garissa. The rest like Mandera, Wajir, Bura and Masalani get stale newspapers.

That should partly help explain why the insecurity question in the north is very little understood. For ease of understanding, insecurity in northern region can be categorised into three: Al Shabaab-related violence, inter-clan violence and then banditry and general crime.

Though the country seems to be fixated on the recent killings, Al Shabaab is actually only a recent addition to the insecurity in the north. It would appear the only reason the country is suddenly concerned is because non Somali Kenyans now appear to be directly affected by what is happening there. This is the kind of situation that tends to lend credence to the grouse by the residents of North Eastern that, in the Kenyan context, killings and insecurity in the north is fine as long as the lives of other Kenyans from the interior are spared.

Even though the number of banditry attacks reduced significantly in the 1990s thus allowing many Kenyans to begin to seek jobs in the north, the poor infrastructure and the general neglect of the region has allowed Al Shabaab to tap into the local grievances easily and thus advance its cause. Government reaction to the Al Shabaab attacks has not helped matters either. Kenyan Somalis, whether in the north or in Nairobi, feel targeted and sidelined by the government.

They are therefore apprehensive any time the word terrorism is mentioned, not because they are guilty, but because they feel they will be the next target. But the North has yet another bigger security problem – inter clan fighting – that has claimed even more lives than Al Shabaab or banditry. The various Somali clans and sub clans have been fighting each other from time immemorial and yet this has either been covered by the


media as just another event that will come and pass or barely given a mention. Soon after the Al Shabaab attacks in Mpeketoni and the subsequent villages in Lamu and Tana River, a deadly inter-clan fighting erupted in Mandera that probably claimed even more lives. The media indeed paid attention to it despite the fact the most news came several hours or days late compared to the other regions.

That has, however, not been the biggest concern with the coverage. The first concern is that these killings have tended to happen even after the authorities have pledged increased security. In fact, the locals say some of the attacks either happen right under the noses of the security officers or security officers fail to respond to distress calls when residents are under attack. The officers have also failed to investigate and bring those behind the attacks to book and thus leading to an unending cycle of attacks and counter attacks.

What is even more baffling is the allegation by the residents that some security officers actually have information on those behind inter-clan fighting but have chosen not to either prevent it or prosecute those responsible. The truth of inter-clan fighting is that it is well organised, with each clan particularly in Mandera retaining well trained youths as an army. The clans are organised such that each household contributes to the clan war chest depending on the financial ability of the family. Some of the very poor families might get away with a contribution as meagre as Sh100 a month, or

even nothing, but the very wealthy ones pay as much as Sh100, 000, according to some of the clan members. What is the money used for? It goes into several things: one, this is the money the clan uses to purchase weapons. AK47 assault rifle goes for as much as Ksh70,000 when the fighting is ongoing but for as little as Ksh5,000 when it is calm. The clans try to boost their armory when there is no fighting because then the weapons are cheap. Two, the money goes into offsetting expenses such as legal fees when a clan member is arrested or even paying bribes to the relevant officers if need be to avoid arrest.

Third, the other part of the money goes into paying and feeding the fighters during the war. Some of the fighters are recruited locally and trained by their more experiences colleagues. The clan armies were, however, boosted when some of the youth recruited in 2006 and trained by the Kenyan military with the purpose of supporting the former Transitional Somali Government either returned from Somalia and integrated into the communities or were simply not posted after training. They use their skills to fight for their clans, but they also help train other youth on how to fight. Some of this has been documented by humanitarian agencies and human rights organisations, although it has barely featured in the local press.

Otsieno Namwaya , a journalist, is a researcher at Human Rights Watch. He is also a member of the Editorial Board of the Media Observer magazine. [email protected]


At odds: Media role and the ‘conveyer belt’ mantraAs JOE KADHI finds out, covering wars has always been a major professional challenge whether or not journalists are exposed to conflict-sensitive training.

Despite the abundance of evidence proving that tendentious journalism can inflame passions and aggravate tension in a conflict situation, old-fashioned professionals still insist conflict sensitive reporting is unprincipled. Claiming that journalists’ responsibility is to call a spade a spade as they “publish and be damned”, these professionals, who invariably belong to the old-school, believe the journalist are conveyer belts whose work is to ensure that when it bleeds, it leads.

Western journalists of this school of thought were among the first to unleash the most vitriolic fusillade of anti-Kenyan journalism rhetoric when commenting about the manner in which local writers covered the 2013 elections. Accusing them of

being sellouts, the Western media

critics alleged that Kenyan journalists chose to look the other way when leaders rigged elections through tribal bulldozing. Yet the very same Western journalists chose to be extremely careful in their choice of words when they were reporting the potentially discordant story about torture that was taking place at Guantanamo concentration camp as they poured scorn on Kenya journalists.

According to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting which is also known as FAIR and happens to be America’s national progressive media watchdog group which professionally challenges corporate media bias, spin and misinformation at almost

all the major US media institutions, American journalists chose to give a total blackout to a story in November

2014 about what it called some sickening details about the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)’s torture programme. According to the watchdog institution, some outlets, like the Washington Post, won’t even call torture by its name. It revealed that the American TV news outlets saw fit to give torture apologists and architects a platform to “rebut” the charges. According to FAIR, many corporate outlets stressed the fear that releasing the information could harm US “interests.”

In one of the boldest exposés of recent times, the watchdog institution revealed that if there was one thing


FAIR had shown over the last 10 years, it’s that corporate media in the US were more interested in excusing--and even promoting--US torture than in exposing it. In its shocking revelation, it claimed to have shown how prominent pundits pushed for torture in response to September 11, on outlets ranging from Fox News to MSNBC, from the Wall Street Journal to National Public Radio (NPR).

In what must have shocked many Americans, the watchdog reminded the journalists that as long ago as 2004, it exposed the New York Times for using euphemisms like “harsh techniques” to describe torture when committed by the US. It also reminded journalists that in 2008, FAIR documented how waterboarding was called “torture” by elite media--so long as they were reporting on other countries. For Western journalists to accuse Kenyan scribes of being unprofessional when back home, where they are ostensibly protected by their own revered First Amendment, they openly violate such a basic ethical principle of accuracy. When Kenya journalists engaged in conflict sensitive reporting of the 2013 election, they were simply professionally handling a story with the potential to exacerbate communal trouble.

In this day and age, the number of journalism scholars who accept conflict sensitive journalism as part and parcel of the profession is swelling the corridors of institutions of higher learning where men and women of the Fourth Estate are being molded. The list of respected journalism professors who are now designing course outlines with conflict sensitive reporting as an elaborate core unit is growing at an alarming speed.

Top on that list are scholars like Ross Howard who believes journalism skills development has not included study of how best to cover violent conflict, and has ignored any understanding of violent conflict as

a social process. Yet in his Conflict Sensitive Reporting, published by UNESCO in 2009, the media scholar shockingly reveals that the news media, with its new technologies and wider reach, is increasingly a target for misinformation, manipulation or suppression by interests seeking to profit from the violent conflict.

In this book the scholar who is a former veteran national correspondent for The Globe and Mail newspaper in Canada who now teaches journalism at Langara College in Vancouver, says working journalists in conflict-stressed countries are more acutely aware than colleagues in established democracies that as journalists and as citizens, their work may seem insufficient, superficial and possibly harmful. He argues that the need for some new approaches to reporting on conflict seems clear, especially to journalists in the most conflict-stressed places and reveals that some well-intentioned journalists, academics and peace researchers today propose a new practice of reporting that consciously works for peace and engages reporters in the roles of advocacy.

Agreeing with Howard are two respected scholars who have written a lot about conflict sensitive journalism, Lisa Schirch, a professor of peace building at Eastern Mennonite University and Vladimir Bratic, an Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at Hollins University. In their book Why and When to Use the Media for Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding which is published by Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict, the two scholars discuss the historical perspective when the media has been used to incite people towards violence.

[Today, the idea of media playing a major role in peace building has grown into a majorpost-graduate study of journalism known as peace journalism]

Giving the example of Hitler who used the media to create an entire worldview of hatred for Jews, homosexuals, and other minority groups as well as that of Rwanda’s radio RTLM which urged listeners to pick up machetes and take to the streets to kill what they called ‘the cockroaches’, the two scholars also discuss broadcasters in the Balkans who polarised local communities to the point where violence became an acceptable tool for addressing grievances. According to them, the media’s impact on the escalation of conflict is more widely recognised than the media’s impact on peace building. Yet, they argue, it is not uncommon to hear experts pronounce that the media’s impact on peace building must be significant given their powerful impact on conflict. However, Bratic and Schirch maintain that this simple relationship must not be taken for granted and should be critically examined in order to most effectively use the media for conflict prevention and peacebuilding.

Believing that the media can assist peace building the two scholars discuss how journalists can influence policy makers, particularly as they think about how to prevent and respond to violent conflict. To the two scholars, the media are also a


tool of policymakers to get across their message. They argue that some theorists even claim that CNN has taken over policymaking - at least in humanitarian disaster situations. They believe images on CNN of genocide, famine, and violence force policymakers to intervene militarily to stop death, even if they do not think it is in the best interest of their country to adopt this policy. Giving the example of Bosnia, the two scholars argue that the media played a very important role in motivating the public to press their policymakers to intervene to stop the aggression.

In yet another book published by the International Media Support in 2008 titled Conflict Sensitive Journalism, Ross Howard argues that professional journalists do not set out to reduce conflict. He suggests that all they do is seek to present accurate and impartial news and concludes that it is often through good reporting that conflict is reduced. Explaining that good journalism is difficult work at the best of times, Howard says there is never enough information and not enough time therefore reporters rely on their training and standards to overcome these difficulties and deliver news which is accurate and impartial.

Today, the idea of media playing a major role in peace building has grown into a major post-graduate study of journalism known as peace journalism. Among its pioneers is Jake Lynch, who is an experienced professional journalist anchoring an international television news programme while teaching post-graduate students in the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney, Australia. Whether or not journalists have been exposed to conflict sensitive training at journalism schools, covering wars

has always been a major professional challenge to them. In recent times one of the most challenging wars to cover has been the war in Syria which according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, is today accepted as the most dangerous place in the world to practice the profession of journalism.

Explaining this danger in a special paper prepared for the United Nations, Dan Saxon, who is an Assistant Professor at Leiden University College in Holland, says at least 30 international and Syrian journalists have been killed covering the Syria conflict since March 2011. In addition, he goes on, several international journalists apparently have been detained by the Assad regime and the units of the opposition armed groups known as the Free Syrian Army (FSA).Concerned about the performance of the vast majority of the national and international journalists reporting from Syria since March2011 which, admittedly, has been invaluable and often courageous because without their efforts, many of the historic and tragic events in Syria during the past two years would have remained unseen and unreported, he nevertheless had some very unpleasant revelations to make concerning the violation of basic ethical principles. His report shows, for example, that during 2012, a small minority of journalists abused and exploited prisoners by `interviewing’ them under highly coercive circumstances. He reveals that several journalists–including those from major news networks–arguably violated moral principles underlying the legal obligations codified in International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and International Human Rights Law (IHRL).

Quoting the part of international

law which makes journalists enjoy important protections under IHL and IHRL and customary international humanitarian law he explains how the law provides that civilian reporters working in areas of armed conflict must be respected and protected as long as they do not take a direct part in hostilities. The professor’s report deliberately focuses on instances where journalists ignored the protections due to prisoners of war (POWs) under IHL and IHRL in order to report about particular events in Syria.

According to the professor the creation and broadcast of these interviews raised important questions regarding the responsibilities of journalists in situations of armed conflict. In his report he poses several extremely important professional questions: Are journalists bound by the rules of IHL? Even if IHL does not impose obligations on journalists, to what extent should reporters, their editors and publishers be expected to understand these principles and rules? Finally (and most complex), he asks, how should journalists balance the tensions between the public interest in the free dissemination and reception of information about an ongoing war and the protections accorded to prisoners of war and other detainees of parties to an armed conflict? Scholars who have tried to answer these important professional questions inevitably conclude that conflict sensitive journalists should be part and parcel of journalism training internationally.

Joe Kadhi is a former Managing Editor of the Daily Nation and now teaches Journalism students at the United States International University. He is also the chairman of the Editorial Board of the Media Observer. [email protected]


Weighing up objectivity and peace journalismWhile the media is yet to fully embrace peace journalism, it is imperative to assimilate it in the newsroom culture as a convenient intervention in the search for peace in conflict situations. AMOS KIBET explores this global debate.

Africa has continued to face a cancerous image of conflict, instability and violence in the media.

In the same breath, peace journalism has been aptly seen to apply in many context of reporting in media houses across the continent.Johann Galtung, a Norwegian academic

in peace studies and the founder of peace journalism, in his famous article “The Structure of Foreign News”, says some media contribute to polarise conflict through some language orientations. He later called this kind of information “war journalism”. To counteract this effect, there is another kind of journalism: Peace journalism. According to Galtung, war journalism has four main features: it is oriented to violence and war, highly influenced by propaganda, focuses on the opinion of the elites and on zero-sum game, that is, one part wins all

and the other part loses all.

Galtung argues peace journalism is oriented to conflict transformation, to inform with veracity, it cares for the opinion of the victims of the conflict, and it understands peace as a solution of a conflict where all the involved parties benefit. Such kind of peace journalism demands journalists take an interpretative approach, concentrated on the stories that highlight peace initiatives; it tones down ethnic and religious differences; anticipates later conflicts; focuses on the structure of societies in conflict; and promotes the solution of the conflict, reconstitution and reconciliation.

Peace journalism implies that information must be given in a detailed and balanced account not only about confrontation and radicalised actors, but also of the causes that explain it. It also should tend for the historical and cultural roots of the conflict, give voice to all of the actors, explain how common people suffer implicit violence, inform if there are any actors willing to


negotiate and, above all, understand peace as a search for and delivery of solutions. Therefore, journalists must present peace proposals from different actors and highlight the positive perspectives. Other practices included in peace journalism are taking a preventive stance or proposing, for example, through editorials and columns, urge for conciliation and to focus attention in shared points instead of revenge, to overlook differences and emphasize the invisible effects of violence such as the emotional harm and trauma for the social structure.

Peace journalism is formed on the basis of four tenets. The first is that journalists must analyse the conflict to be in a position to inform about violent facts. This analysis must include the roots and causes, the confronting parties and their objectives. Secondly, the information should present an orientation to conflict solution, giving relevance to proposals, negotiations, and agreements. Thirdly, journalists should pursue truth in a symmetrical manner, that is, reality positive and negative of the contending parties, not just from one side.

Lastly, the orientation of the information must be towards the voice of common people and not just for the elites. David Loyn, a BBC correspondent, strongly criticizes peace journalism because of what he views as “contempt for objectivity” and calls for the more traditional values of journalism such as objectivity and balance, highlighting that objectivity has to remain as a goal, the only sacred goal of journalism. It should be considered at this point that the concept of objectivity has always been somewhat slippery, and it is mainly evoked when it is perceived to be absent. Few reporters can attest to total neutrality or impartiality. At best, journalists will admit a measure of detachment from their own personal biases in practicing journalism.

Samuel Peleg, in his publication In defense of Peace Journalism; A rejoinder, confirms the above assertion. He states “the concept of objectivity has always been elusive”, and so he says “a more realistic outline of the spirit of journalism holds that objectivity is simply unsustainable, and that journalists should aspire to something much more like a neutral perspective on any controversial matter. As such, they should carefully study and then report the viewpoints of both sides. It does not mean that the journalist has no stand in the conflict, only that his or her personal opinion does not interfere nor misrepresent the professional conduct of reporting an event “as it is”. Unlike objectivity that boasts no opinion and no judgment, neutrality is an opinion restrained and judgment reserved.

[The media serves as public interpreters of events and as symbolic arenas for ideological struggle between antagonists: Wolfsfeld]Jeremy Iggers also points out that though few journalists still defend objectivity, this remains one of the greatest obstacles to perform a more responsible role in the building of public life. Jake Lynch responds to the concept of objectivity, introducing instead the concept of framing, quoting Entman, who describes framing as the process of selecting some aspects of a perceived reality and making them more silent in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation”

The solution to balancing the tenets of peace journalism and the demands of professional objectivity is exercising a professional culture. The journalist professional culture is a system of values, norms, beliefs and practices of the profession.

According to Wolfsfeld, there are four variables that influence the professional culture. First, journalists hold a series of routine frames for conflict coverage that are based on their definition of what makes a good story (news criteria). These criteria imply, for instance, the power of negative images on the victims of war attacks. The second variable is an understanding of journalists” obligation to serve the public as a watchdog against the government. Thirdly, the different beliefs, priorities and practices among news media. The latter, for instance,


focuses on good visuals and short stories for television, whereas the written press holds different priorities. The last factor that Wolfsfeld underlines is the total sum of the different beliefs and values held by each news body. These variations will have a significant impact on what stories will echo within each culture, and how information will be processed in the construction of news.

Wolfsfeld rightly argues the media serves as public interpreters of events and as symbolic arenas for ideological struggle between antagonists and it uses certain routine frames to cover political conflicts, based on its definition of what makes a good story. He says three major elements contribute to the construction of media frames of conflict: the nature of the information and events being processed; the need to create a good news story; and the need to create a story resonating politically within a particular culture.

While peace journalism may not have been fully embraced by the Kenyan media, it is important to consider it as an important intervention in the sustenance of peace. It is therefore necessary to incorporate peace journalism into newsroom media practices, and for this there must be flexibility. Such flexibility will imply the understanding of the operation and editorial line of the media. In the political field, journalists should be aware of the

specific historical context of the countries and of the political culture of the audience. This will ensure peace journalism is not considered in direct contravention of the professional tenets of objectivity.

Amos Kibet is the Research & Media Monitoring Officer at the Media Council of Kenya. [email protected]


Quite often, games have been used to settle political scores and to express the society’s feelings on socio-political issues. The sports media has often been at a cross-roads; undecided whether to help validate various causes by granting protestors air time or newspaper space, or merely

turn a blind eye to such activism on the field of play.

Most recently, USA’s National Basketball Association (NBA) league players openly displayed their anger at the police killings of unarmed African-Americans by turning up for league games in T-shirts emblazoned with messages against racial profiling. “I can’t breathe” was the message on Los Angeles star Kobe Bryant’s T-shirt, a message that reverberated across the USA in reference to the final words of Eric Garner, an African-American chocked to death by a New York City police officer, Daniel Pantaleo, who walked away free despite video evidence of the killing. The players’ show of solidarity was extensively covered in the US and global media, adding the powerful voice of sports to the massive protests that climaxed in chaotic scenes in Ferguson, Missouri, following the November 9 acquittal of policeman Darren Wilson who, on August 9, shot dead an unarmed black

teenager, Michael Brown.

Across the ages and centuries, sports has been used as a symbol of peace.

On Christmas eve in 1914, during the First World War truce, for example, English and German soldiers mingled for a game of football. The term “peace journalism” was coined in 2002 by one Johan Galtung, a researcher in conflict studies who, according to Chen Kertcher of the Tami Steinmetz Centre for Peace Research at Israel’s Tel Aviv University, suggested that journalists “should focus on the shared experience of suffering and not on their more common ways of depicting conflict in terms of taking sides and supporting specific narratives.”

In his article in the May, 2013 Journal of Conflictology, Alexander Cardenas, a Marie Curie Research Fellow in Sustainable Peace Building, points out that “Sport’s main contribution to peace building processes is its universality.”“Because of its cross-cultural nature, sport is a unique way of breaking through geographic and social barriers and therefore can be a major component of social interventions, especially those targeting children and youths,” he adds.

The increasingly vital role that sports plays in conflict resolution and peace-building cannot be complete without the media playing its role to highlight such

Role of sports journalism in peace promotionSports is a sign of peace but sadly, the media has not been keen on the vital roles it could play in settling conflicts and highlighting societal atrocities. ELIAS MAKORI critically examines the significance of the cross-cultural nature of sports.


peace initiatives.And this is a role that Gianni Merlo, the President of the International Sports Press Association (AIPS) since 2005, appreciates only too well.

“I am strongly convinced that sports journalism has an important and unique role in the peace-building, because sport journalism has no border, and is open to the world,” says Merlo, the 2013 IAAF World Journalist of the year and a veteran editor with Italy’s La Gazzetta delo Sport, the world’s oldest sports newspaper.

[Sadly, Kenya’s sports media has been way off tangent regarding the vital role it could play in helping settle conflicts and highlight societal atrocities]Merlo highlights the fact that over the years, sports and sports journalism has played a critical role in conflict

resolution and peace-building initiatives. “It is worth remembering that sport was important in the past century, when (former President) Nixon of the United States opened doors to China through the tennis table policy,” says Merlo, a widely respected track and field journalist. Sports journalists have the advantage of appealing across the political and religious divides, and impartially communicating to various groups. “We can do a lot to open new doors, because we can communicate freely with people of different religions and political systems,” Merlo adds. “The language of sport is universal.”

In his article titled “The role of the international media in the Palestinian-Israel Conflict,” published by the Electronic Intifada in October, 2003, Siham Rashid, then the Director of the Public Relations at the Palestinian Counselling Centre, highlights the power of global media in conflict resolution, especially in the long-running Israel-Palestine conflict. “The international media has the ability to affect change and it is a potent weapon and a resource that should not be underestimated,” says Rashid. “The silence of the international media on many issues has meant international ignorance and complacency and the attention of the international media on other issues has given those issues prominence on the world scene.” “Media have tremendous power in setting cultural guidelines and in shaping political discourse,” writes Rashid. Three years ago, Merlo himself was among the sports journalists who tried to use the pen to broker


peace in the Palestine-Israel conflict. “The situation there is very tense. But we (sports journalists) will try again as it is only by helping the youth of these countries to play together and to know each other better, that it is possible to find a way. “We have to try to destroy the wall of isolation to help, because it is the isolation that works against the normal peaceful human relationships. As sport journalists we have the duty to work to build a better future for the young generations,” adds Merlo, a 67-year-old Italian who launched his journalism career in 1967 writing for the magazine Atletica Leggera before penning his by-line for various publications including Giorno, La Gazzetta del Popolo, Corriere dello Sport and, most recently, the Gazzetta dello Sport.

Sadly, Kenya’s sports media has been way off tangent regarding the vital role it could play in helping settle conflicts and highlight societal atrocities. Take the annual Tegla Loroupe Peace Race in Kapenguria, West Pokot County, as an example. Launched by former world marathon record holder Tegla Loroupe in 2003, the idea of an annual peace race was introduced mainly to build trust among the warring communities of the North Rift and help in the disarmament process. Loroupe saw sports, and athletics in this case, as an appropriate vehicle to help the warriors and cattle rustlers surrender their guns and take up peace-building initiatives and this has gone a long way in reducing instances of cattle rustling and banditry. The success of the Kapenguria model led to the Tegla Loroupe Peace Foundation launch similar races in Moroto (Uganda), South Sudan and Kenya’s Tana River. Unfortunately, Kenya’s sports media perennially focuses on the winners of these annual 10-kilometre races and document their times with little or no reference to their (races’) impact in peace-building initiatives.

This is an opportunity lost as immediately after the races, the aspirations of the Tegla Loroupe Peace Foundation are swallowed in the excitement of journalists in a hurry to beat deadlines with race results, and with hardly any time to explore news feature ideas that would include interviews with reformed ex-warriors. Ex-warriors like

the group from Kainuk in South Turkana District who have been converted into advocates of peace through the foundation’s annual race in Moroto, and are helping forge community relations between Pokots and Turkanas along the volatile Turkwel, Amolem and Kasei regions.

Incidentally, Loroupe’s inspiration to use sports for peace-building was borne out of the attention of sports journalists in the West, once again highlighting the crucial role sports journalism plays in conflict resolution. “I realised that when I was in Europe, most of the time when there was a crisis, they used to look for names (to contextualise the crisis) and every time my name would always appear,” Loroupe, the first African woman to win the New York Marathon in 1994 told sports website, insidethegames.biz.

“So I realised I have something special that people want to get from me, so I had to translate that back to my community, intervene and ask the government, ‘let’s work there’,” she says.

Sadly, for all the efforts she has put into her peace races initiatives, Kenya’s sports media hasn’t really come through for her in spreading the vital peace message. A cursory glance at the coverage of this year’s Tegla Loroupe Peace Race, for instance, reveals that almost all television stations and newspapers in Kenya focused their reporting on the exploits of race winners Justus Kangongo and Gladys Yator.

There was little, or no reference at all, to the peace ideals of the race whose socio-political impact has seen it endorsed by the International Association of Athletics Federations’ “Athletics for a better world” programme that promotes the use of athletics globally as tool for improving society.

Elias Makori, the Nation Media Group’s Regional Editor (North Rift), is the 2012 IAAF World Journalist of the year. Makori is also the 2014 Media Council of Kenya’s Sports Journalist of the Year (print)[email protected]


Social media redefining breaking newsAs CHURCHILL OTIENO explains, it’s no longer business as usual for traditional media. Whenever a story breaks, a large majority rush to social media for updates before even thinking of tuning into their television or radio sets.

On December 2, 2014, Kenyans woke up to breaking news of 36 people killed in a Mandera quarry attack by suspected Al Shabaab terrorists. The Nation’s digital platforms were the first mainstream channel out with the story.

By the end of the day, its coverage of the massacre had been read by the highest number of people in Nation.co.ke’s history, higher than last year’s General Election and the Westgate coverage. I can guess other digital

outlets that carried the story experienced a more or less similar spike since the ‘netizens’ are known to be very promiscuous in their news consumption habits. The question is… what changed? Social media!

What we should focus on a little more is why did a much bigger audience consume this story and how did we conduct ourselves as professional journalists as we pushed updates into social media networks. Every journalist active on social media can probably do their own postmortem of their performance, but let me suggest a few issues for consideration. Let’s spell out a few home truths. One, journalists have lost the battle


of breaking stories to social media – that space is now democratised. Indeed, when word goes round of a breaking story, a large majority of people would reach into their timelines for updates before they think of tuning on their television or radio set.

The newspaper is not even an option.

Secondly, given its fast paced yet open nature, social media always is more chaotic the more sensational the breaking story is. A big portion of the updates flowing through would lack nuance and completeness. Some of this would be innocent omissions by participants who care to share only the bits they happened to witness, while others are the works of propagandists and their digital vigilantes organised to ride the social media wave for sectarian ends.

Thirdly, given the above context, the role of the journalist in a world of quick paced news distributed through nifty mobile platforms cannot end at simply restating facts without, at a minimum, suggesting their sense of completeness, or better, adding a critical and/or explanatory perspective. Our reporting must not stop at the simple definition of that term, but we must embrace its expansive meaning to include a deliberate attempt to help establish truth in as honest and transparent a manner as is practical. So that our reporting in the Mandera quarry attack at some point early in the day would be more accurate as “attackers shoot dead 34 and slit the throats of two others” and only after one had verified would it become “Al Shabaab shoot dead 34 and slit the throats of two others”.

In our time, journalism must not be defined by the medium that carries the stories, rather by the values that drive those stories. This is a critical distinction that often gets lost as we claim loyalty to newspapers, television, radio, magazines or indeed online often subordinating all else. Thankfully, in a manner of speaking, social media has arrived and is working by the second to disabuse this notion, a tweet and an update a time. If as a journalist your best effort is merely a story repeating what a news source said/did, then Twitter and Facebook is showing you thousands of others who can do that at all levels in the social ladder.

At an ethical level, how we cover conflict in the age of social media must be grounded on the primary pillars or foundational values of journalism. One of the most critical is the concept of trust, for it is what provides the basis for journalists to claim to have a watchdog role. Hence, a journalist, or indeed a media house, is as influential as the trust the public attaches to it. We gain this trust through fidelity to public good. Out of this arises the concept of media accountability.

Renowned journalism scholar Claude-Jean Bertrand summarises media accountability as a means of making the media responsible towards the public. Given this reality, the media it seems must make a judgment call whether conflict is good or bad for the public/society and proceed to provide ethical coverage from one stance or the other. Individual journalists must consider these imperatives now that social media has made one-person media houses a reality.

In the mainstream institutional media, acceptance of media accountability has been through the establishment of public editors, media councils, ombudsmen, letters to the editor criticising media performance and more. In the digital age, journalists must adopt innovative iterations of these into their otherwise personal spaces as a matter of duty. Hence, we must acknowledge criticism or disagreement arising from our social media engagement in much the same way that we amplify adulatory mentions.

In the final analysis, as we navigate unverified information and race to break stories, we must accept that often times we do not know the complete story even as we Tweet and Facebook away. Hence, ethical communication makes it our responsibility to indicate these gaps clearly to our audiences.

Churchill Otieno, a pioneer online journalist in Kenya, is the Managing Editor for Digital and Convergence at Nation Media Group. Twitter: @OtienoC [email protected]

A journalist during a past demonstration against the passing of media laws deemed oppressive to media freedom.

Media Council of KenyaTraining session in progress

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In the line of duty: Journalists exploring all possible avenues to capture a story.


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