By Ghost Writer
The fear of libel is the beginning of wisdom in any newsroom—it ought to be. It is the most well-unkept secret that Kenya’s newsrooms are reeling from defamation cases running into hundreds of millions of shillings. In fact, it is no secret that if all the fellows currently pursuing defamation cases against some of our media houses win, some newsrooms would have to close shop or change shop to start selling foolscaps and pens.
At one time, The Standard, alarmed by the rising number of expensive libel cases against the paper, summoned all its reporters and sub-editors for compulsory training on libel. The training unearthed shocking laxity at The Standard’s gatekeeping that exposed Kenya’s oldest newspaper to libel suits running into millions of shillings—from errors in spelling someone’s name, to a 5cm “brief” that attracted a couple of millions in libel payment.
After the training, The Standard introduced a ‘libel list’—a monthly listing of stories that had been flagged for libel. These had the names of the writer, the sub-editor, the editor, the revise editor, and the editor who worked on them. The thinly veiled threat in this monthly libel bulletin was that the newspaper would not continue paying reporters, sub-editors, and revise editors whose laxity was costing it millions of shillings.
Whether the monthly libel bulletin worked to reduce the defamation bill at The Standard or not is for the paper’s management and media researchers to ascertain. This, too, includes whether the panic the libel list stirred at the subs’ desk might actually have led to more lapses. Such was the panic that certain names instantly raised red flags every time they surfaced in a story—the story in which they appeared stood zero chance of making it to the pages, unless a new gatekeeper was handling it.
The list also gave new fodder to newsroom gossip busy-bodies (and they are not in short supply in our news desks) who, as if newsroom assignments were not enough work, also assigned themselves the task of minding other people’s business—night runners in the newsroom who, long after the paper has gone to press, stay on to feed the newsroom rumour mills. “Huyo hata ako na kesi mingi sana za libel—huyo anaenda in the next lay-off.”
Whether the libel bulletin still exists today or not is anybody’s guess. But what a number of media observers can ascertain without having to hire pollsters is that there has been an increasingly notable laxity in gatekeeping on Mombasa Road, and that The Standard seems to have started a dangerous game of snake charming at its news desk.
The signs are there for all to see—opinion articles packaged as news and features; headlines screaming so loud they would wake even the most dormant devil in charge of libel in the coven; one-sided reporting that runs on the heat of the moment and thinly veiled personal vendettas waged against perceived opponents of media owners.
You see it in reckless headlines and stories that need no jury to rule that they injure the reputations of the persons named in them—headlines that are clearly single-handedly crafted, sometimes well ahead of the story itself.
Now, for all his matatu reform credentials, former Internal Security minister John Michuki was also infamous for his famous quote: “If you rattle a snake, you must be prepared to be bitten by it”—a remark that was made even more infamous because it damaged Michuki’s media freedom credentials. But judging from emerging trends, some sections of the media seem to have taken Michuki’s snake rattling business to a whole new level by bringing in the rattle snake inside the newsroom and gleefully rattling it’s tail at the news desk.
