A story died the other week. Well, stories die all the time. Editors are called gatekeepers precisely because one of their key roles is to sniff out stories that don’t make sense or have other serious flaws and toss them into the dustbin.
But the story that died in one of the leading newsrooms in town did not have serious flaws. It had been approved by the news desk and allocated space in the newspaper.
The story was about an important state agency suspected to be involved in irregular tendering for construction of a Sh3 billion facility in Nairobi.
Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission detectives stormed the offices of the agency and took away important documents relating to the tender, the story said.
EACC boss Twalib Mbarak wrote to the CEO of the state corporation on June 18 asking for certain documents needed for the investigation.
“This commission is conducting investigations into allegations of procurement irregularities at xxxx in relation to tender xxxx. To facilitate our investigations, kindly furnish us with the original documents relating to the above tender,” said part of the letter.
It is alleged the corporation awarded contracts to friendly suppliers willing to give bribes.
Parliament is also said to be investigating the corporation.
The story said the CEO issued a statement saying its procurement was above board but the corporation welcomed investigations.
“Xxxx upholds the highest standards of accountability and transparency and all board of directors, management and staff are held to these values,” the statement said.
But the story never saw the light of day. It was killed.
A reliable source who requested anonymity because they are not allowed to discuss newsroom conspiracies told the Observer that two senior editors separately approached the subeditor assigned the story asking that it should be dropped immediately.
No explanation was given.
But the source confided in the Observer that the CEO of the state corporation under investigation had contacted the newspaper’s owners and offered adverts worth an unknown amount of money in return for killing the story.
And so the story was killed.
A review of media coverage over the past two weeks reveals that the EACC investigation of the state corporation has not been reported by any media house. Could the CEO have cut deals with the media owners to mute the story? Anything is possible in Kenya.
Independence is a cardinal tenet of journalism. The Code of Conduct for the Practice of Journalism in Kenya enjoins scribes to, “Gather and report news without fear or favour, and resist undue influence from any outside forces, including advertisers, sources, story subjects, powerful individuals and special interest groups.”
Journalists are obliged to, “Determine news content solely through editorial judgement and not the result of outside influence.”
But, well, journalists do not own media houses. They are employees. They do not always decide news content. They do as they are told by the owners. Can they resist pressure? Unheard of. They need their job.
That is the elephant in the newsroom.
