We have had too many opinion polls in the run up to this year’s election.
But, maybe, we need one more opinion poll – this time on the performance of the media both on the campaign trail and during the vote. Did we get it, or did we drop the ball at some time?
Twin Towers public editor Peter Mwaura must have sampled a few reactions from the public in trying to answer this question. After patting our shoulders for a job well done, Peter went on to interrogate the media’s questioning.
In a nutshell, Peter pointed out that some of the questions asked the candidates in this year’s elections were, simply put, ‘not questions.’
Peter cited and correctly pointed out a question by Ken Mijungu to David Mwaure Waihiga during the presidential candidate’s debate. After Waihiga had tabled his Mister Clean credentials on matters corruption, Mijungu quipped: “Maybe it’s because you’ve not got the opportunity. That is why you can stand tall and say you have not been involved in any corruption. Perhaps if you have had the opportunity…”
On this one, Peter, the referee in the game between the media and the public, blew the whistle: prrrrrrrrrrrrh! Offside! The question was manipulative! It carried the presumption of guilt!
We agree.
We also join Peter in blowing the whistle on the way our media men and women frame their questions: away from “tafadhali tunaomba urudie ulivyosema kwa Kiswahili”, many of the questions asked out there, and which are splashed the next day on our headlines, are ‘not questions.’
Instead, they are traps set up for the persons being interviewed. They are, as Peter correctly put it, “…. trick questions of the ‘Have you stopped beating your wife?’ variety.”
And then there was the tired script of “X launches a ‘scathing’ attack on Y, Y responds to X’ reporting. If a Martian landed in Nairobi and read the news, he would have thought Kenya was at war- and a ‘scathing’ war for that matter.
Two, the X attacks Y-Y responds to X” sounded and read every bit like we were conducting a well-choreographed choir, or even playing referees on a boxing ring.
As such, every time Politician X mentioned Politician Y on the news today, the next day’s headline would be ‘Politician Y responds to politician X’.
In the end, we were playing the politicians against each other, not caring about what damage such phrases like ‘scathing attack’ would do on a restless public prior to a national election. If there is nothing against this in our Code of Conduct and ethics, then it ought to be added as a footnote.
Speaking of opinion survey on our election coverage, there was one where the media came up for mention. Like everyone else, the Mediascape takes all surveys with a pinch of salt.
However, one survey caught our attention: the one that ranked institutions that Kenyans trust in the run up to the elections. And the media came second after the police!
Of course we can, in the typical Kenyan peculiar habit, dismiss the survey as doctored. But science is science, and we must accept that we, the media, no longer hold the coveted position of the most trusted institution in Kenya that we have held for years.
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And now for last week’s gems: in its reportage experts calling for the decriminalising of suicide reported that a “verbal autopsy” indicated that persons that committed were depressed.
Now, we are not experts in autopsies, but being lay people like much of the media consumers out there, we will be forgiven for asking out loud: how do you conduct a verbal autopsy on a dead man? Do you walk up to the body and say: “Excuse me, sir, could you be kind enough to tell us why you committed suicide?”
In another story, Nation (online) screamed: ‘Why ‘your’ favourite twilight girl is being chased out of Thika town.’ Favourite twilight girl? Something stinks to high heavens here. For starters, last time we checked, prostitution was illegal in Kenya. Are we trying to sanitise the world’s oldest profession here? Are we trying to normalise buying sex in a publication that claims to uphold family values?
Second, we have favourite food, favourite music, favourite musician…and now, Nation just introduced ‘favourite prostitute!’ Or maybe we have a case of misplaced single quote marks on ‘your’ instead ‘favourite’ here?
Still on Nation online: “When police cornered them in a one-room house rented by one of them, some of the learners were high on bhang and others were taking liquor and listening to high pitched music.”
Now, close your ears, this is a high-pitched question: what exactly is high-pitched music?
