The Kenya Editors Guild has started training journalists on election reporting ahead of the polls scheduled for August 9, 2022. At a session in Kwale last week, some reporters expressed fears that they could be attacked for their work and appealed to their media houses to prepare for their safety.
Well, the Media Council of Kenya has entrenched these preparations and safety-related trainings within the MCK Africa Media Academy. Training is conducted regularly.
Violence is a permanent feature of Kenya’s political landscape. Contests for power seem to bring out the worst in us, whether it is a by-election in some remote ward or the presidential election. Contrary to some observers, there is no spontaneous electoral violence. It is all planned. The 2022 election will certainly be violent; the difference will be the scale of the chaos.
The lead story in the People Daily on Tuesday, July 6, bore the headline, “State outlines 2022 violence hotspots”. The story said the government is laying out strategies to ensure peaceful elections in the wake of rising political temperatures ahead of next year’s polls. Interior CS Fred Matiang’i met police bosses over this.
“Sources at the meeting told the People Daily that the government had identified all towns in Upper Eastern, North Eastern, Nyanza, Central, Nairobi and Rift Valley as potential hotspots,” the paper reported. Now that is almost the entire republic.
“Emergence of some gangs in Nyanza and Nairobi regions and tensions in various parts of Central Kenya are said to be giving the authorities sleepless nights.”
We know two things: 1) Journalism is not a crime and 2) it is the responsibility of the government to protect the lives and property of every citizen. But we also know a third thing – that, this is not how things work here. In countless instances, security starts – and ends – with you, the citizen.
That is why some journalists have already expressed fears of their safety in the period leading to the next elections. In a tweet circulated in some WhatsApp groups last week, a political party forum accused journalists from The Star, Nation and The Standard of “biased reporting”. No explanation was offered.
“This [is] rampant in Makueni County and especially the journalists who report for the Daily Nation newspaper. This is against reporting ethics. We are putting them on notice”.
Such threats are common, but they take a more ominous shade as elections approach. Politicians and their agents know the power of the media in shaping public opinion. They will not want reports that cast them in bad light, however truthful they are, to see the light of day.
Charged political situations always put the lives of reporters at risk. It gets worse. If reporters’ safety is not assured, they can resort to self-censorship to stay safe. No story is worthy dying for.
Threats of violence against journalists mean they may be afraid to report the truth because they could be attacked by those who may not want certain stories to be published.
Reporters could also become vulnerable to being corrupted for their own safety. In both cases, and added to the generally poor labour conditions of many journalists, media freedom and independence suffer. Democracy dies whenever the media is unable to discharge fully its constitutional mandate of reporting the truth without fear or favour.
Given the almost guaranteed violence in elections, media houses must be proactive and prepare for the safety of their journalists.
The Media Council of Kenya, Kenya Editors Guild and their partners must be commended for training journalists on safety and election reporting. But this is not enough. Media owners must follow suit and put in place adequate mechanisms for the safety of journalists as they prepare to cover the 2022 elections in just over a year.
