Deputy President William Ruto is a familiar face and voice in the news. His position naturally keeps him in the limelight. But Ruto is not just in the news. Talk show hosts like to interview him. He is intelligent, articulate and, as everyone knows, a shrewd politician.
Ruto is one newsmaker any reporter must be thoroughly prepared and courageous to handle. From interviews conducted with Citizen TV’s Hussein Mohammed and recently K24 TV’s Anne Kiguta, etcetera, it looks certain that one can talk with Ruto for hours without him revealing much new information. He says only what he wants.
The DP is perfectly within his rights to play his mind games with interviewers in whichever way he deems fit.
Like most politicians in Kenya, Ruto sometimes grumbles about how the media covers him. Nothing to worry about.
On August 14, he tweeted: “This is what constitutes FAKE NEWS. I know it is difficult but newspapers should try selling without the ‘Ruto’ mention. Please! Tafadhali woiye!
The DP was woiyeing about a front-page story in the Star newspaper titled, “Ruto allies plot to scuttle Uhuru-Raila referendum.”
He did not give details of how that story was fake news. There is nothing wrong at all with newspapers selling stories with Ruto in the headlines. The DP can disagree with news reports about him.
What is alarming though is that the Deputy President appears to be hostile to journalists for reasons that are not quite clear to the Observer.
Days before that tweet, Ruto was captured telling off reporters at a wedding in Baringo County.
“Do you think I came here to address you? Wananchi are more important than you,” a furious Ruto reportedly said.
Another report quoted him as saying: “You guys from the media are too many. Can you clear off the crowd in front of me? Allow the public to see me because I did not come here to address you people.”
What followed was ugly.
The DP’s security officers pushed and roughed up all the journalists from private media houses, leaving only those working with the Deputy President’s Press Service, the Star reported.
Earlier when his chopper landed, security officers blocked news photographers from approaching to take pictures.
“The officers tore the trousers of two journalists who were jostling with the crowd to take photographs of the DP as he greeted residents,” the Star reported.
“I was punched on the face. I almost broke my camera while running away to save my life,” a journalist who declined to be named said.
So, journalism becomes a matter of life and death.
Last year, a Nation photographer nearly had his camera broken after an officer with the DP roughly whisked him away at a function in Eldama Ravine.
There is the story of the DP’s spokesman David Mugonyi threatening a Nation writer last year over a news report.
This is sad.
Journalism is not a crime. Reporters have a job to do covering the DP wherever he goes. He is a public figure and his activities and utterances are a matter of public interest.
As Deputy President of the Republic of Kenya, Ruto has sworn to uphold the Constitution, which guarantees media freedom.
Ruto wants to be the President of Kenya. It is worrying that a man of such power and influence is hostile to the media.
Journalists are not immune to error. Our laws and democratic practices have clear mechanisms for handling media disputes of every kind.
DP Ruto should educate his security detail and other aides that the media must be allowed its lawful freedom to operate without interference in a democratic society. The dignity of his high office demands nothing less.
