The media is free to clearly state and defend their political affiliations in modern democracies. Locally, this happened in 2013 and in 2017 when some media outlets took positions and conspicuously aligned with certain parties and their ideologies.
Today, a similar trend seems to be emerging ahead of the 2022 General Election.
The ethical principles of journalism worldwide spell out how journalists and media in general should conduct their operations especially during political processes. When the law is not clear on whether the media should declare its support for a particular political party or candidate, it is upon media owners to decide their political direction.
In fact, each media targets a different audience and uses a different tone to castigate the opponents of their favourite candidate or party. In this analysis, we observe a new trend in media stories.
Since March 12 when the first case of Covid-19 was announced in Kenya, almost every media had consistently dedicated almost three to five stories in every news bulletin or newspaper pages to the coverage of coronavirus. But beginning of May, a new trend has emerged where almost every media outlet is drifting towards politics.
Reports continue to show that many major media outlets attract partisan audiences, which therefore replicates political biases in the coverage. Again, this phenomenon is motivated by the urge to be popular in the minds of the audience. Unfortunately, the growing political schisms appear to be driving polarization in the majority of the population as well.
If what John Zaller in his book, “A theory of media politics – how the interests of politicians, journalists and citizen shape the news”, is anything to go by, then K24 TV, Daily Nation, The Star and Standard newspapers or any other media house in Kenya is playing media politics. By media politics Zaller refers to anyone conducting politics through the media directly or indirectly. “The weapons of combat are press conferences, photo opportunities, news release, spin and leaks to the press,” Zaller writes.
Whether we call it media politics or not, it is clear from recent stories that some media outlets have received leaks on which direction political realignments are taking in Kenya. For example, K24 in its 9pm news on May 10 reported in what appeared to be a true reflection of who would be the new Senate Majority Leader when the party leader, President Uhuru Kenyatta met senators.
In its online platform, K24 TV cited themselves as a source to support the reported changes within Jubilee party. “According to People Daily, Gideon, a fierce rival of Ruto, is likely to be a big beneficiary of the new alignments”. This raises the question: Was K24 providing its opinion or receiving leaks from close party associates considering media house’s ownership?
Some media outlets also perpetuate character-based scripts. For example, The Star newspaper splashed the headline, “Uhuru betraying Ruto: Kalenjin, Kikuyu elders” (April 30) and again on May 7, “Tuju: Where Uhuru, Ruto war started”. On the other hand, Standard newspaper on May 3, reported, “Ruto camp ultimatum to Uhuru” and the next day, May 4, splashed the headline, “DP allies plot takeover.”
A notable trend is that some media outlets are taking position as the country heads to 2022 elections. And whether these media houses will maintain the ethical principles of journalism is something which needs close monitoring.
At this point, the Media Council of Kenya with mandate of promoting high professional standards amongst journalists will continue to monitor these trends within the Kenyan media.
