The Code says journalists should not use financial information they receive in advance of its general publication for their own benefit. They should not also pass the same information to others. The Code also says journalists should not write about shares, securities and other market instruments in whose performance they know they or their close friends have a significant financial interest, without disclosing the interest to the editor. It further says journalists should not buy or sell, directly through nominees or agents, shares or securities and other market instruments about which they intend to write in the near future.
Though financial journalism in Kenya is blossoming there has been no complaint of violation of this Code by practitioners. Such a complaint caused a scandal in Britain in 2000 when the Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan bought substantial shares of a company called Viglen Technology only one day before its share prices rocketed. Did he have inside information before he bought the shares? The scandal was exposed by the Daily Mirror’s biggest rival The Sun which called for Morgan’s resignation. Following The Sun’s story Morgan was summoned by the o executives of the Daily Mirror and asked to reveal all his share dealings since he became the editor.
He now reveals what happened in his book and says: “I told them the circumstances behind the Viglen purchase and they seemed satisfied. I also explained that both my broker and one of my cousins who occasionally trades with him had bought Viglen shares a few weeks before I did. And that my uncle had also recommended them only last week.”[1] According to Bond the Sun’s expose was followed by investigations by both the Press Complaints Commission and the Government’s Department of Trade and Industry as well as the Stock Exchange which monitors transactions in quoted companies for evidence of insider dealings.[2] Bond claims that calls for Morgan’s resignation went as far as the House of Commons threatening the then 34 year old editor who had reestablished he Daily Mirror as an “intelligent populist force after the title nearly folded.”[3]
Financial journalism in Kenya has been the weakest part of the profession for a very long time. Business pages were produced by ordinary reporters who neither impressed economists nor financial experts. Today things have changed and business pages are extremely busy. As Levin (1997) observes one of the reasons why there are not many reporters interested in financial journalism is that it is quantitative.[4] By financial journalism he means all the writing that has to do in a very direct way or a very basic way with money or finance. But he argues that the same kind of qualities that are required for good financial journalism are required for good journalism of all kinds.[5]
According to Burton (2002) financial journalism is an “odd” subject of the media and its practitioners in America are sometimes better paid than their peers in other branches of the profession, partly because they are assumed to have some special knowledge and are less likely to panic at the sight of sets of numbers.[6] He criticizes financial journalists for not being quick enough in blowing the whistle on the successions of corporate scandals that have been making headlines in the United States.[7]
In Kenya there are many corporate scandals that go undetected for the failure of financial journalists to come up with appropriate exposes. Ordinary wananchi are conned by unscrupulous crooks day in and day out without the protection of financial journalists. Indeed savers lost millions in the scandal involving Trade Bank before any financial journalist sounded and alarm bell. Financial journalists all over the world, including Kenya, may be a breed of special people with special quantitative skills but they will most certainly be better journalists if they put their skills in investigative aspects.
It may be true that the Code only concerns itself with the use and abuse of financial information particularly shares and securities;.but I believe financial journalism covers a much wider area – an area that makes it possible for the production of all the business and financial pages and programmes which in Kenya are improving everyday. Financial shenanigans, however, need to be the concern of financial journalists who must see their role as that of exposing dirty deals in business and financial circles.
Kenyan financial journalism is more reportorial than investigative and this is a big challenge for the experts in the field. The kind of investigative journalism on business and financial matters which is boldly conducted by The Private Eye of Britain could be most welcome in Kenya when journalists become courageous enough to publish and be damned. Burton believes financial journalism as it is practiced today is more of a “mouthpiece for companies than as their tormentor.”[8] This is particularly so in the case of Kenya where improvement of business reporting has not been accompanied by critical analysis of the ugly pictures behind what readers, viewers and listeners are fed with everyday.
One of the major reasons for uncritical financial journalism in Kenya is the fact that big businesses keep media houses alive through advertisement. Both editors and proprietors are reluctant to bite the hand that feeds them. Besides that there is a bit of corruption in the name of hospitality that takes place all the time. Junkets are commonplace and gifts during Christmas time are accepted by senior editors from the most powerful companies. For obvious reasons this Code is more restrictive that permissive. Editors are always watchful not to offend proprietors and proprietors always protect colleagues in business. It is a vicious circle.
In Britain the Press Complaints Commission has given its members what it calls “Private Eye” Test to determine what to and not publish in financial journalism. The test says: If it would embarrass a journalist to read about his or her action in “Private Eye” and at the same time undermine the integrity of the newspaper, then don’t do it.”[9] Whether the Media Council of Kenya should introduce such a ruling which seems to amounts to self censorship, journalism scholars should discuss.
The other reason that makes financial journalism in Kenya attractive is the fact that Kenyans have become some sort of capitalists. Besides politics they are keenly interested in reading about shares in the Nairobi Stock Exchange. More and more of them are interested in matters concerning insurance and pension policies. They are also interested in stories about guiding them to make sensible savings.
So any journalist who can interpret intricate figures involved in these matters into simple and understandable common language, can qualify to be called financial journalist. Freelance journalists who understand money matters will always sell their stories more easily than those who write about crime and politics which are very crowded areas. All in all financial journalism in Kenya seems to be still in its embryonic stages and until it develops to include serious exposes in business and financial giants it will still remain an infant in the profession.
[1] Morgan, Piers. Insider. Ebury Press in Great Britain. 2005.
[2] Bond, Simon “Insider Trading Scandal Roils Already Nasty Tabloid Slugfest” in Time Magazine on Website. Visited in 2007.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Levin, Doran. “Everything We Write Is Rooted in Money. Learn to Follow The Buck” in Detroit Free Press .1997.
[5] Ibid
[6] Burton, P.S. “Financial Journalism: A very Small Cog” in Counter Punch Newsletter on July 30th 2002.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid
[9] From the Press Complaints Commission’s “Financial Journalism Best Practice” Note 2005.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
15. Sex Discrimination
The code says women and men should be treated equally as news subjects and news sources but everyone knows that almost all media institutions in Kenya are rampant with all sorts of discrimination based on sex. Few journalists in this country have conceptualized the idea of gender equality as a human right issue. According to Maureen O’Neil, President of the North-South Institute, there is a growing conviction among women activists in virtually every country that women’s rights are human rights. However, she argues, securing rights for women – rights within the family, rights to won property, rights to abortion, rights to vote , rights to move about freely without a husband’s or male relative’s agreement, right to pass on citizenship – frequently have not been seen as central to “development”.
She says: “In countries of the North, the fight for legal rights has animated women’s struggle for separate personhood, as legal rights have always been seen as stepping stones to equality. This struggle for just, legal treatment for women is now going on around the world.” That is except for Kenya and many other African countries. The struggle for gender equality has yet to knock the media door, forget its opening that door and entering the newsrooms.
When the nominated MP , Njoki Ndungu, tabled the Sexual Offences Bill in Parliament in early May in 2006, Kenyan journalists missed a wonderful opportunity to prove that newsrooms are not as chauvinistic as many suspect. Like the rest of the Kenyan male dominated community the media made fun of the Bill despite the fact that sexual offences in Kenya are as heinous as they are escalating. The reason could be the fact that most of the decision making positions in all the major media houses are male dominated despite the fact that schools of journalism throughout the country train equal number of male and female journalists. As a result of the lackadaisical manner in which the Ndungu Bill was handled by the media it was drastically mutilated before it was accepted by the majority of Kenyan parliamentarians.
Human Rights for Women
As stated before, gender issues are now being perceived as an important element of human rights for women. Men can no longer be allowed to continue to succeed economically, politically and socially at the expense of women who are left far too behind. They cannot be let to get away with it all by simply saying that behind every successful man is a woman. The woman today would rather not be behind anybody's success but her own. She wishes some men took the trouble to be behind her success for a change. All she wants however is to be at the same level of success with men because she knows it would take a long time before she is allowed to play the leading role.
Time has however come when gender issues to be openly discussed through the Press even though, by and large, the mass media remains male dominated. In the past, indeed until very recently, gender issues were not regarded by journalists, including female journalists, as important enough to warrant front page treatment in newspapers or to be used as first items in Television or Radio news bulletins. The reasons for that are many and complicated but the situation will not change unless we conduct a thorough examination about what determines the subjects covered by journalists, who assigns them and who allocates the space or air time used by the stories once they are written.
Needless to say, we may also have to examine how the stories on gender issues are written before they are used by editors as "hard" news stories, features, news bulletins or film documentaries. That examination will be incomplete without first determining what gender issues are and how to go about making sure journalists in future do not ignore them. Women being part and parcel of humanity, makes it extremely difficult to distinguish which aspect of human existence needs to be highlighted so as to enable us to evaluate women's role in society and whether that role is being given its due respect and recognition. But if we agree that gender issues are basically Human Rights issues then it becomes less cumbersome to list aspects of life which tend to disfavour women or discriminate against them. In the Kenyan context the list can be very long.
Poverty among women
Though they are the most hard working group, women in Kenya cannot be said to be given a fair opportunity to either earn decent incomes or own property. Despite the hard work they put up, many of them appear to be among the groups with lowest incomes. Apart from being denied a fair opportunity to make a good income for themselves they also happen not to be given a fair chance to take part in making important economic decisions. There are few of them in the administration and even fewer in parliament, large numbers of their existence as voters notwithstanding. A very small number of them are in courts and in local government.
One hardly hears of their representation in big financial institutions. For these reasons and more, it becomes impossible to see stories about women's poverty as such. No one seems to be concerned about their poverty. Journalists writing about economic issues or business stories hardly ever highlight the mistreatment of women in the economic activities of the country mainly because many of them are either gender insensitive or they simply happen to be men writing about male dominated affairs.
Business assignments specifically to cover the unfair imbalance against women are not made – hence business pages hardly ever carry stories about the mistreatment of women in this important sector of the country's economy. Past mistakes can only be corrected by sensitizing present business writers to gender issues or better still making sure that women journalists hold important positions in business sections of editorial departments.
Violence against Women.
According to a Unesco - conducted research, stories written in Kenyan newspapers depict men and women playing their traditional roles which associate men with strength, leadership, decision-making and independence while women are associated with the very opposite of these characteristics. Stories about violence against women are therefore hardly written by journalists in Kenya mainly because male editors do not assign journalists to cover them or when they are written they are used in the inside pages as fillers since journalists who are insensitive to gender issues do not see them as "news".
A government survey published by the Daily Nation of May 26, 2006 indicated that violence against women went up from 11,867 to 12,036, an in increase of 169 in one year alone. Most of the women who reported violence at that time were battered by the spouses. According to the report many more cases were unreported. The report said rape, attempted rape, incest, defilement and assault were listed as common offences committed against women.
“Last year,” said the report, “1,451 rape cases were reported, while those on defilement were 1,416. Assault and battery cases topped 9,169. In a bid to check rising cases of violence against women, the Government posted specially trained offices to Nairobi’s Kilimani police station to deal with such cases”. Gender desks were also set up at every district police headquarters to encourage victim of violence to report cases.
Who should determine what is news in modern day journalism? It is obviously unfair to continue publishing front pages stories of male politicians calling each other all sorts of names day in and day out when women are being seriously injured by their husbands as they "instill discipline" into them by physically battering them up without a single word being written in our newspapers about these shameful activities. To many male journalists when a politician insults another it is first class news deserving front page treatment, but when a husband causes serious bodily harm to his wife it is simply a private domestic affairs unworthy of any publicity.
According to Unesco, only a small minority of women in Kenya are considered to be newsmakers; and the exclusion of women from the "news" is of course related to the definition of news. This definition needs to be re-examined if gender issues are to get fair coverage in our newspapers, TV and radio stations. The problem of lack of coverage about violence against women in Kenya is caused by more or less the same insensitivity of male editors who assign reporters to various tasks. It is also caused by absence of women journalists in decision-making positions in newspapers.
Studies conducted in India about the coverage of women affairs reveal a situation which is not very different from what we see in our own country namely: Women are under-represented in general, and occupy less central roles than men in TV programmes and in newspaper stories. Marriage and parenthood are considered more important to women than to men; and the traditional division of labour is shown as typical in marriage. Women on TV are more passive than men. Women are absent from action and adventure programmes or/and from decision making roles. There is a tendency of depicting women as victims rather than aggressors while their financial and emotional dependence on men and their unwillingness or incapacity to solve their own problems are all magnified. Poverty and violence against women are two of many subjects which could occupy much more prominent positions on our newspaper pages as well as prime time of our TV and radio programmes.
There are many subjects about women which male journalists who are insensitive to gender issues are not eager to cover. Lack of interested female journalist to cover them means subjects such as forced female mutilation; unequal job opportunities, educational opportunities etc; polygamy and forced early marriages; lack of legal awareness among women victimised by men; cultural and religious beliefs that tend to go against women's human rights; laws being used to subordinate women; health issues which endanger women's lives such as illegal abortions and unequal partnership in marriages are really not given media prominence they deserve.
FGM
May be one aspect about violation of human rights against women in Kenya that is so difficult to write about is FGM which was banned in 2001 followed by Children’s Act of 2002 which criminalizes it but is still widespread because of socialization and religious beliefs. Writing for Women’s eNews’ May 27th 2006 edition, Ochieng Ogodo says after being outlawed FGM has now gone underground “to the dismay of many anti-FGM advocates who worked to dissuade midwives from performing the traditional rite.” Ogodo claims FGM is now conducted under a cloak of secrecy in more clinical environment such as rural and small city hospitals.
He says there even accounts of mobile FGM clinics in which nurses an clinicians move from village to village, easily eluding police . If these claims are true they are yet to be exposed by journalists. Ogodo explains the practice is widely believed to increase the girl’s chances of marriage, prevent promiscuity, and promote easy childbirth. “Women who do not circumcise their daughters run the risk of being seen as irresponsible, immoral and imitators of Western culture,” he says.
An even trickier aspect of covering FGM is journalists’ ability to explain to the people the various forms of FGM which subject young girls to extremely torturous and highly primitive behavior. According to the US State Department Country Report of Kenya there are three types of FGM: (a) Clitoridectomy (b) Excision (c) Infibulation. The first one entails the removal of clitoral hood mainly practiced by the Kisii people; the second entails the removal of clitoris and together with labia minora (the inner vaginal lip) mainly practices by Merus and the Masais and the third one entails the removal of everything which is common among the Somalis.
Part of the problem facing Kenyan journalists and the sensitive FGM story they are not able to fully write is the fact that a number of female journalists have undergone the ritual and some of them are not quite convinced it is that diabolical!
The Traditional Women's Page
One of the biggest problems for women journalists - and the cause of lack of adequate gender sensitivity among most Kenyan journalists - has been caused, paradoxically, by the so-called women's pages which have been responsible for the subjugation of female journalists at work and the reason for chasing stories of very little benefit to women readers. Probably stories written by women journalists in Kenya and which are mostly published on women's pages are dull for historical reasons because these pages were started by female European journalists such as Liza Mackiney and Mary Hayne who wrote for European readers in 1960s and 70s.
They wrote about European fashions and trends with no African woman in mind. Though African women Editors have taken over the publications of these pages, very little seems to have changed in the content of the pages. This seems to suggest that every woman in Kenya is preoccupied with Western-oriented beauty and hair style, cookery and child-husband care. Attempts must be made to restyle the traditional women's pages both in content and positioning in newspapers so as to give women journalists and indeed male journalists who are gender sensitive an opportunity to write about more important issues concerning the rights of women in society.
In this day and age when both women and male journalists undergo the same training and have more or less the same academic qualifications, it is foolhardy to ask women journalists to write for women's pages only and write about dull subjects such as hair styles and the latest shoe fashions. May be one of the strongest arguments against women's pages is the placement of news about women's issues on these pages which hints to men that this is not their concern.
The fact that no gender battle will ever be won without changing the attitude of men does not seem to concern those who are after the continuation of present set up of separate pages for women. Female editors and reporters with the same qualifications as men are now taking a different view of women's pages and they demand that sensitive gender issues should be given as much prominence in newspaper display as any other issue concerning men.
Thirty years ago when the women's pages were being written and edited by European female journalists, African women readers had a problem of dealing with the notion that black woman was "ugly". That, I suggest, was the beginning of use of wigs by black women who, in an effort to look as European as possible, did not care how ridiculous they appeared when they wore blonde wigs which actually made them look ugly. The Press in Kenya, through women's pages played a highly significant role in the promotion and selling of the concept of the Ugliness of an African woman.
Women journalists in Kenya would be doing a great professional job if they exposed that sector of cosmetic industry in our country which is entirely dependent upon the pursuit of European beauty by black women. Certain entrepreneurs in cosmetics and "beauty products" have become millionaires as a result. Yet any serious campaign against commercial products which tend to demean the African women are likely to face very serious opposition from powerful groups of advertisers who are likely to get the backing of newspaper owners.
This is despite the fact that a number of advertisements published in Kenyan newspapers continue to expose Kenyan women to a feministic model whose psychological, physical and material characteristics are derived from Western cultural values system which attempt to imitate European women. A number of advertisements published in Kenyan newspapers depict women as sex objects and glamour girls just like those advertisement in the Western World.
One of the most respected researchers on this issue of misuse of women as advertising "baits" for a number of commodities is Margaret Gallagher who bitterly criticises this reactionary and yet insidiously flattering images which the media present of women-to themselves and to men - as sexually alluring sirens. The advertising industry in Kenya could simply not survive without the use of women as "baits" in the sale of products ranging from cosmetics to liquor and cars.
Strictly speaking, there should be no objection to the use of women, men or children in advertising but the contention comes when women's bodies are used as sex symbols and baits to sell various commodities including condoms. Most advertising in Kenya tends to exploit women in terms of their sexuality and their physical appearance. This trend has been copied from Western publications and TV programmes and has mostly been transplanted into this country unchanged. Margaret Gallagher's research on portrayal of women in various countries reveals that men always remain the centre of the women's universe.
In Brazil, for example, fictional stories on Television portray women as people who cheerfully, and without any complaints what-so-ever, sail through their domestic chores single-handed on top of a day's work outside the home. When this scenario is brought to Kenya, it ceases being fictional because it is actually a way of life for many working Kenyan women. In Britain, Gallagher discovered that apart from a handful of female politicians, the only other category of women considered newsworthy is that comprising celebrities.
The treatment of women in Britain as "hard" news involves a series of stereotypes concerning physical appearance, domestic role, marital status which portray them as perpetual dependants of men. This British example is the pattern of news selection in Kenyan newspapers, radio and Television stations. Unless a woman in Kenya is a politician or a celebrity, she cannot expect to appear on the front pages of our newspapers or make a lead story in our radio or television bulletins unless she miraculously took a trip to the moon and returned in a day.
When she is talking of the gender issue she will be lucky to make a filler in the inside pages of the newspapers or the last item of the radio or television news in this country. Gallagher tells us that women in Australia are portrayed in the media as the careful and homely housewives or sex objects or the efficient secretary and the devoted mothers. The story can hardly be said to be different in Kenya. The one country where Gallagher found gender issues being given the media coverage they deserved was in Sweden where newspapers, television and radio dealt with the relationship of women in the labour market.
She also found the media in that country being very concerned with the whole country's growing radicalism about women's work in the home and in paid employment. The media were reasonably sympathetic to the role of the housewife whose work was portrayed as hard, time consuming and responsible. The question then arises: If journalists in Sweden can overcome prejudices against women and treat gender issues as real news, why are we not able to do the same here?
Negative Media Treatment of Women
Either because of ignorance on how to deal with gender issues or because of the absence of women in important decision-making positions in the media institutions, journalism in Kenya can correctly be criticized for continued under-representation of women in the hard news columns of newspapers and news bulletins of our Radio and Television. Apart from under-representation of women in the news presentation in Kenya, there have also been noticeable ambivalent attitudes to women in the news which are evident in certain stereotyped images in which women are either "good" and "pure" or they are "bad" and "immoral".
Generally speaking this image of women comes across in stories in newspapers or even fiction in books and indeed plays shown on our TV screens. The "good" women are those who are confined in homes taking care of their families and are dependent on men while they show romantic attitudes towards their husbands. The inferior status of women in social, economic and cultural spheres comes out as accepted norms in both fictional characters and actual newsmakers. Generally speaking, women in Kenya mostly make news as wives, mothers or daughters of men already in the news.
They hardly ever make news on their own merit unless, of course, they happen to be part of the man-run or man-benefiting fashionable activities or man-benefiting entertainment business. And as has been pointed out before, the advertising that goes with these fashionable and entertainment activities are usually extremely condescending both in their tone and their unhidden manipulative intentions. The misuse of women as the "bait" through which various products are sold need not be emphasized.
The Virgin - Whore Dichotomy
Either consciously or simply by blindly obeying sociologically established cultural values, the media in Kenya, like those in many parts of the world, continues to portray women through a dichotomous motif which defines women either as good mothers who are traditional or as whores or call-girls who are modern. The virgin-whore dichotomy is more clearly noticeable in fictional portrayal of women in the electronic media in Kenya.
In this presentation, the woman is "good" if she is characterized by dependence, ineffectuality, humility and lack of initiative. But she is normally a "bad" character if she is a career lady and if she is independent and shows a bit of self-control which is not dependent on men. The most serious question which naturally follows this observation is; why do some women willingly agree to take part in plays and fictional presentations of programmes which portray them as being subordinate to men?
The answer is obviously deeply buried in the inequalities which are within our own cultures. Cultural and sometimes religious explanations are the root causes of gender inequalities and are probably the most difficult for journalists to expose and criticise. Any journalist with enough courage to criticize a religious or cultural norm which negatively defines the role of women is a crusading journalist worthy of praise. But Kenya has very few of these! Looking at gender discrimination based on culture and religion clearly makes me wonder whether a time has not come for a deliberate campaign to bring about change in some of our cultural values.
That campaign ought to be as vigorous as the present democratization movement in our society. Those expected to take the lead in such campaigns must be journalists. No gender issues can be brought up as major topics in newspapers and in the electronic media without a thorough examination of our ideologies of domesticity and motherhood. The structures of many stories about women are based on the subordinate domestic role of an African mother. The cultural roles of women in the domestic atmosphere of our society must be a subject of critical media examination. The whole political and economic structures of our entire society need to be examined to see whether they treat women fairly or equitably. Gallagher says in a world where female access to political and economic power is in most cases severely limited, their status and roles are defined within political, economic and cultural systems which tend to exclude them from effective participation. The mass media's role is primarily to reinforce definitions and identities set in a framework constructed for and by men. An overriding concern for women, therefore, should be with changes in the political and economic structure. Yet media have been observed to lag behind as an independent change agent. Even if the media in Kenya cannot be expected to initiate change, they can certainly be expected to reflect it.
Participation of Women in the Media
So far this chapter has looked at the manner in which the mass media in Kenya portray the women in general and gender issues in particular, but to do so without examining the role women journalists play and the condition of their employment as professional people would be only looking at one side of the coin. In examining the gender issues in the Kenyan mass media it is important to look at both portrayal and employment aspects of women in Kenya. If the portrayal aspect of the issue looks hopelessly bad, then that of employment can be said to be equally impoverished as the participation of women in media production is still very wanting in this country.
Apart from being numerically fewer than men, women journalists who are already in employment are experiencing an extremely difficult task in trying to climb upwards into editorship or other important positions in the editorial departments of newspapers and other media organisations. The importance of women taking part in defining "news" before journalists are given assignments has already been examined by this chapter but the sad news is that it appears as if it will be a long time before women in journalism play that pivotal role in this country.
Apart from that, the morale of women journalists is constantly being weakened by the fact that few of them have the professional independence or autonomy of writing the subjects of their choice. Many of them are forced by male editors to write about the traditional women issues of fashion, motherhood and good housekeeping. Their desire to write about the modern burning gender issues can hardly be fulfilled under these conditions. Their journalistic talents can also not be seen when they are confined to write about very limited subjects. Naturally, if any journalists continue to write about subjects of little interest to the readers, viewers and listeners they can hardly be noticed by their bosses when pay rises and promotions are being considered.
The morale of women journalists is constantly being affected by the attitude of editors towards day-to-day news decisions about what to cover and how to cover it. Women journalists are sent on uninteresting assignments because it is assumed that they cannot handle aggressive sources of news. This of course has been proved wrong locally by journalists of Catherine Gicheru's calibre and internationally by journalists like Christian Amanpour who covered the Iraqi war together with Peter Arnett though we only hear of the later as the hero of war coverage.
Because of the equality in educational background of all journalists in Kenya today and the fact that the majority of them go through the same training, it is extremely unfair to insist on giving assignments based on gender even though those assignments have nothing to do with the gender issues. The few women who were in the profession during my time as Managing Editor of the Daily Nation preferred to work for the traditional women's page and my efforts to move one whom I thought could be an excellent general reporter ended up with a resignation threat.
The selection of news under my editorship may have been based on male roles and may have ignored the role of women, while whenever they were involved, a tendency to refer to irrelevant details about their appearance, age and family status was shown. Yet not a single woman journalist complained about this tendency and I believe this was due to lack of people sensitized on gender issues both on the part of male writers of the time and female journalists in the news rooms. The reference of the then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as "The Iron Lady" was common in our headlines yet no one wondered why we made no such descriptions about any male leaders. And women journalists did not raise a finger!
Be that as it may, it is extremely important for all journalists to get equal pay for equal work but without equal opportunity this call means absolutely nothing. Occupational segregation which splits assignments into "male” and "female" jobs will always work against women journalists who will be omitted from the so called "dangerous" assignments which are invariably a source of front page stories and a stepping stone to higher and more responsible positions which inevitably go with better pay.
Dual Responsibilities of Women Journalists
Most of women journalists who are also mothers combine the dual responsibility of domestic work and professional assignments. Through my carrier as a newspaper editor no man ever asked me for permission to go home to either baby-sit or to cook for children - a constant reason for women journalists' absenteeism or early retirement from office and avoidance of working late hours. The persistent attitude in our society that housework and children are women's rather than men's domain has always worked against women journalists whose chances for promotion are and will continue to be jeopardized by the fact that they cannot work late or they cannot be recalled at night to chase sensitive stories which earn their writers recognition and promotion.
Most women journalists working for the mainstream newspapers in the country are members of the Kenya Union of Journalists, yet very few of them hold any positions in the union and hence the union does not seem to fight for gender issues in the employment of journalists in the country. The percentage of women in the Kenyan Press was said by Unesco in 1981 to be five per cent. That number must now obviously have increased and the union should be even more concerned about the mistreatment of its female members if it is to be credited with being really concerned about the welfare of all its members.
With the number of women journalists increasing, there is no noticeable increase in responsible positions held by women in the mass media. Thus, it is fair to conclude that there is considerable occupational segregation against women. One notices a clear concentration of women in less prestigious jobs in both newspaper and the electronic media where women are not only less paid than men but also where there are less chances for career development and therefore less chances for promotion. A visit to any of the Kenyan media houses would reveal that jobs of telephone operators, secretaries, tea makers and translators are mostly occupied by women whereas men hold top editorial positions. Until today there are no women journalists holding top positions in the Foreign Desk, Business Department, Sub Editor's desk, Supplements Department or even Sports Departments.
It is therefore not difficult to note that there is segregation against women both horizontally where they hold most junior positions, and vertically where they hold very few top jobs. At the technical level there is a negligible number for women in the country's broadcasting, film or the print media. The reasons managers in these industries give for not promoting women is that most women cannot work long hours or night shifts. But very little consideration is given to the fact that most women working for the mass media in this country carry the dual burden of family and work responsibilities making it very difficult for them to compete with men who have the freedom to work the hours they are assigned to or travel whenever they are demanded to by their assignments.
The only panacea to this serious professional imbalance for women journalists seems to be a demand for a legislation which would protect their rights as mothers and which would make sure there was real equal pay for equal work. May be those concerned with gender issues in journalism should be thinking about the introduction of an Equal Pay Act along with a Sex Discrimination Act. Looking at what legal action has done for women journalists in the Western World may encourage feminists to start thinking about taking the whole matter to court to fight for women's rights. Sex discrimination proceedings have been fought and won against such companies as Reuters in the UK; NBC, Newsday, Newsweek and the Washington Post in the United States.
The New York Times has avoided going to court by making compensatory payments out of court and by promising to speed up the promotion of women. Kenyan media industries should also be forced to consider the introduction of an Affirmative Action in favour of women journalists, but my fear is that these demands cannot be expected to be made by the male-dominated Kenya Union of Journalists. May be the only other solution is to seriously look into the possibilities of professionalisation of Journalism in Kenya. This would make sure all professionals, both male and female, are treated equally by employers.
She says: “In countries of the North, the fight for legal rights has animated women’s struggle for separate personhood, as legal rights have always been seen as stepping stones to equality. This struggle for just, legal treatment for women is now going on around the world.” That is except for Kenya and many other African countries. The struggle for gender equality has yet to knock the media door, forget its opening that door and entering the newsrooms.
When the nominated MP , Njoki Ndungu, tabled the Sexual Offences Bill in Parliament in early May in 2006, Kenyan journalists missed a wonderful opportunity to prove that newsrooms are not as chauvinistic as many suspect. Like the rest of the Kenyan male dominated community the media made fun of the Bill despite the fact that sexual offences in Kenya are as heinous as they are escalating. The reason could be the fact that most of the decision making positions in all the major media houses are male dominated despite the fact that schools of journalism throughout the country train equal number of male and female journalists. As a result of the lackadaisical manner in which the Ndungu Bill was handled by the media it was drastically mutilated before it was accepted by the majority of Kenyan parliamentarians.
Human Rights for Women
As stated before, gender issues are now being perceived as an important element of human rights for women. Men can no longer be allowed to continue to succeed economically, politically and socially at the expense of women who are left far too behind. They cannot be let to get away with it all by simply saying that behind every successful man is a woman. The woman today would rather not be behind anybody's success but her own. She wishes some men took the trouble to be behind her success for a change. All she wants however is to be at the same level of success with men because she knows it would take a long time before she is allowed to play the leading role.
Time has however come when gender issues to be openly discussed through the Press even though, by and large, the mass media remains male dominated. In the past, indeed until very recently, gender issues were not regarded by journalists, including female journalists, as important enough to warrant front page treatment in newspapers or to be used as first items in Television or Radio news bulletins. The reasons for that are many and complicated but the situation will not change unless we conduct a thorough examination about what determines the subjects covered by journalists, who assigns them and who allocates the space or air time used by the stories once they are written.
Needless to say, we may also have to examine how the stories on gender issues are written before they are used by editors as "hard" news stories, features, news bulletins or film documentaries. That examination will be incomplete without first determining what gender issues are and how to go about making sure journalists in future do not ignore them. Women being part and parcel of humanity, makes it extremely difficult to distinguish which aspect of human existence needs to be highlighted so as to enable us to evaluate women's role in society and whether that role is being given its due respect and recognition. But if we agree that gender issues are basically Human Rights issues then it becomes less cumbersome to list aspects of life which tend to disfavour women or discriminate against them. In the Kenyan context the list can be very long.
Poverty among women
Though they are the most hard working group, women in Kenya cannot be said to be given a fair opportunity to either earn decent incomes or own property. Despite the hard work they put up, many of them appear to be among the groups with lowest incomes. Apart from being denied a fair opportunity to make a good income for themselves they also happen not to be given a fair chance to take part in making important economic decisions. There are few of them in the administration and even fewer in parliament, large numbers of their existence as voters notwithstanding. A very small number of them are in courts and in local government.
One hardly hears of their representation in big financial institutions. For these reasons and more, it becomes impossible to see stories about women's poverty as such. No one seems to be concerned about their poverty. Journalists writing about economic issues or business stories hardly ever highlight the mistreatment of women in the economic activities of the country mainly because many of them are either gender insensitive or they simply happen to be men writing about male dominated affairs.
Business assignments specifically to cover the unfair imbalance against women are not made – hence business pages hardly ever carry stories about the mistreatment of women in this important sector of the country's economy. Past mistakes can only be corrected by sensitizing present business writers to gender issues or better still making sure that women journalists hold important positions in business sections of editorial departments.
Violence against Women.
According to a Unesco - conducted research, stories written in Kenyan newspapers depict men and women playing their traditional roles which associate men with strength, leadership, decision-making and independence while women are associated with the very opposite of these characteristics. Stories about violence against women are therefore hardly written by journalists in Kenya mainly because male editors do not assign journalists to cover them or when they are written they are used in the inside pages as fillers since journalists who are insensitive to gender issues do not see them as "news".
A government survey published by the Daily Nation of May 26, 2006 indicated that violence against women went up from 11,867 to 12,036, an in increase of 169 in one year alone. Most of the women who reported violence at that time were battered by the spouses. According to the report many more cases were unreported. The report said rape, attempted rape, incest, defilement and assault were listed as common offences committed against women.
“Last year,” said the report, “1,451 rape cases were reported, while those on defilement were 1,416. Assault and battery cases topped 9,169. In a bid to check rising cases of violence against women, the Government posted specially trained offices to Nairobi’s Kilimani police station to deal with such cases”. Gender desks were also set up at every district police headquarters to encourage victim of violence to report cases.
Who should determine what is news in modern day journalism? It is obviously unfair to continue publishing front pages stories of male politicians calling each other all sorts of names day in and day out when women are being seriously injured by their husbands as they "instill discipline" into them by physically battering them up without a single word being written in our newspapers about these shameful activities. To many male journalists when a politician insults another it is first class news deserving front page treatment, but when a husband causes serious bodily harm to his wife it is simply a private domestic affairs unworthy of any publicity.
According to Unesco, only a small minority of women in Kenya are considered to be newsmakers; and the exclusion of women from the "news" is of course related to the definition of news. This definition needs to be re-examined if gender issues are to get fair coverage in our newspapers, TV and radio stations. The problem of lack of coverage about violence against women in Kenya is caused by more or less the same insensitivity of male editors who assign reporters to various tasks. It is also caused by absence of women journalists in decision-making positions in newspapers.
Studies conducted in India about the coverage of women affairs reveal a situation which is not very different from what we see in our own country namely: Women are under-represented in general, and occupy less central roles than men in TV programmes and in newspaper stories. Marriage and parenthood are considered more important to women than to men; and the traditional division of labour is shown as typical in marriage. Women on TV are more passive than men. Women are absent from action and adventure programmes or/and from decision making roles. There is a tendency of depicting women as victims rather than aggressors while their financial and emotional dependence on men and their unwillingness or incapacity to solve their own problems are all magnified. Poverty and violence against women are two of many subjects which could occupy much more prominent positions on our newspaper pages as well as prime time of our TV and radio programmes.
There are many subjects about women which male journalists who are insensitive to gender issues are not eager to cover. Lack of interested female journalist to cover them means subjects such as forced female mutilation; unequal job opportunities, educational opportunities etc; polygamy and forced early marriages; lack of legal awareness among women victimised by men; cultural and religious beliefs that tend to go against women's human rights; laws being used to subordinate women; health issues which endanger women's lives such as illegal abortions and unequal partnership in marriages are really not given media prominence they deserve.
FGM
May be one aspect about violation of human rights against women in Kenya that is so difficult to write about is FGM which was banned in 2001 followed by Children’s Act of 2002 which criminalizes it but is still widespread because of socialization and religious beliefs. Writing for Women’s eNews’ May 27th 2006 edition, Ochieng Ogodo says after being outlawed FGM has now gone underground “to the dismay of many anti-FGM advocates who worked to dissuade midwives from performing the traditional rite.” Ogodo claims FGM is now conducted under a cloak of secrecy in more clinical environment such as rural and small city hospitals.
He says there even accounts of mobile FGM clinics in which nurses an clinicians move from village to village, easily eluding police . If these claims are true they are yet to be exposed by journalists. Ogodo explains the practice is widely believed to increase the girl’s chances of marriage, prevent promiscuity, and promote easy childbirth. “Women who do not circumcise their daughters run the risk of being seen as irresponsible, immoral and imitators of Western culture,” he says.
An even trickier aspect of covering FGM is journalists’ ability to explain to the people the various forms of FGM which subject young girls to extremely torturous and highly primitive behavior. According to the US State Department Country Report of Kenya there are three types of FGM: (a) Clitoridectomy (b) Excision (c) Infibulation. The first one entails the removal of clitoral hood mainly practiced by the Kisii people; the second entails the removal of clitoris and together with labia minora (the inner vaginal lip) mainly practices by Merus and the Masais and the third one entails the removal of everything which is common among the Somalis.
Part of the problem facing Kenyan journalists and the sensitive FGM story they are not able to fully write is the fact that a number of female journalists have undergone the ritual and some of them are not quite convinced it is that diabolical!
The Traditional Women's Page
One of the biggest problems for women journalists - and the cause of lack of adequate gender sensitivity among most Kenyan journalists - has been caused, paradoxically, by the so-called women's pages which have been responsible for the subjugation of female journalists at work and the reason for chasing stories of very little benefit to women readers. Probably stories written by women journalists in Kenya and which are mostly published on women's pages are dull for historical reasons because these pages were started by female European journalists such as Liza Mackiney and Mary Hayne who wrote for European readers in 1960s and 70s.
They wrote about European fashions and trends with no African woman in mind. Though African women Editors have taken over the publications of these pages, very little seems to have changed in the content of the pages. This seems to suggest that every woman in Kenya is preoccupied with Western-oriented beauty and hair style, cookery and child-husband care. Attempts must be made to restyle the traditional women's pages both in content and positioning in newspapers so as to give women journalists and indeed male journalists who are gender sensitive an opportunity to write about more important issues concerning the rights of women in society.
In this day and age when both women and male journalists undergo the same training and have more or less the same academic qualifications, it is foolhardy to ask women journalists to write for women's pages only and write about dull subjects such as hair styles and the latest shoe fashions. May be one of the strongest arguments against women's pages is the placement of news about women's issues on these pages which hints to men that this is not their concern.
The fact that no gender battle will ever be won without changing the attitude of men does not seem to concern those who are after the continuation of present set up of separate pages for women. Female editors and reporters with the same qualifications as men are now taking a different view of women's pages and they demand that sensitive gender issues should be given as much prominence in newspaper display as any other issue concerning men.
Thirty years ago when the women's pages were being written and edited by European female journalists, African women readers had a problem of dealing with the notion that black woman was "ugly". That, I suggest, was the beginning of use of wigs by black women who, in an effort to look as European as possible, did not care how ridiculous they appeared when they wore blonde wigs which actually made them look ugly. The Press in Kenya, through women's pages played a highly significant role in the promotion and selling of the concept of the Ugliness of an African woman.
Women journalists in Kenya would be doing a great professional job if they exposed that sector of cosmetic industry in our country which is entirely dependent upon the pursuit of European beauty by black women. Certain entrepreneurs in cosmetics and "beauty products" have become millionaires as a result. Yet any serious campaign against commercial products which tend to demean the African women are likely to face very serious opposition from powerful groups of advertisers who are likely to get the backing of newspaper owners.
This is despite the fact that a number of advertisements published in Kenyan newspapers continue to expose Kenyan women to a feministic model whose psychological, physical and material characteristics are derived from Western cultural values system which attempt to imitate European women. A number of advertisements published in Kenyan newspapers depict women as sex objects and glamour girls just like those advertisement in the Western World.
One of the most respected researchers on this issue of misuse of women as advertising "baits" for a number of commodities is Margaret Gallagher who bitterly criticises this reactionary and yet insidiously flattering images which the media present of women-to themselves and to men - as sexually alluring sirens. The advertising industry in Kenya could simply not survive without the use of women as "baits" in the sale of products ranging from cosmetics to liquor and cars.
Strictly speaking, there should be no objection to the use of women, men or children in advertising but the contention comes when women's bodies are used as sex symbols and baits to sell various commodities including condoms. Most advertising in Kenya tends to exploit women in terms of their sexuality and their physical appearance. This trend has been copied from Western publications and TV programmes and has mostly been transplanted into this country unchanged. Margaret Gallagher's research on portrayal of women in various countries reveals that men always remain the centre of the women's universe.
In Brazil, for example, fictional stories on Television portray women as people who cheerfully, and without any complaints what-so-ever, sail through their domestic chores single-handed on top of a day's work outside the home. When this scenario is brought to Kenya, it ceases being fictional because it is actually a way of life for many working Kenyan women. In Britain, Gallagher discovered that apart from a handful of female politicians, the only other category of women considered newsworthy is that comprising celebrities.
The treatment of women in Britain as "hard" news involves a series of stereotypes concerning physical appearance, domestic role, marital status which portray them as perpetual dependants of men. This British example is the pattern of news selection in Kenyan newspapers, radio and Television stations. Unless a woman in Kenya is a politician or a celebrity, she cannot expect to appear on the front pages of our newspapers or make a lead story in our radio or television bulletins unless she miraculously took a trip to the moon and returned in a day.
When she is talking of the gender issue she will be lucky to make a filler in the inside pages of the newspapers or the last item of the radio or television news in this country. Gallagher tells us that women in Australia are portrayed in the media as the careful and homely housewives or sex objects or the efficient secretary and the devoted mothers. The story can hardly be said to be different in Kenya. The one country where Gallagher found gender issues being given the media coverage they deserved was in Sweden where newspapers, television and radio dealt with the relationship of women in the labour market.
She also found the media in that country being very concerned with the whole country's growing radicalism about women's work in the home and in paid employment. The media were reasonably sympathetic to the role of the housewife whose work was portrayed as hard, time consuming and responsible. The question then arises: If journalists in Sweden can overcome prejudices against women and treat gender issues as real news, why are we not able to do the same here?
Negative Media Treatment of Women
Either because of ignorance on how to deal with gender issues or because of the absence of women in important decision-making positions in the media institutions, journalism in Kenya can correctly be criticized for continued under-representation of women in the hard news columns of newspapers and news bulletins of our Radio and Television. Apart from under-representation of women in the news presentation in Kenya, there have also been noticeable ambivalent attitudes to women in the news which are evident in certain stereotyped images in which women are either "good" and "pure" or they are "bad" and "immoral".
Generally speaking this image of women comes across in stories in newspapers or even fiction in books and indeed plays shown on our TV screens. The "good" women are those who are confined in homes taking care of their families and are dependent on men while they show romantic attitudes towards their husbands. The inferior status of women in social, economic and cultural spheres comes out as accepted norms in both fictional characters and actual newsmakers. Generally speaking, women in Kenya mostly make news as wives, mothers or daughters of men already in the news.
They hardly ever make news on their own merit unless, of course, they happen to be part of the man-run or man-benefiting fashionable activities or man-benefiting entertainment business. And as has been pointed out before, the advertising that goes with these fashionable and entertainment activities are usually extremely condescending both in their tone and their unhidden manipulative intentions. The misuse of women as the "bait" through which various products are sold need not be emphasized.
The Virgin - Whore Dichotomy
Either consciously or simply by blindly obeying sociologically established cultural values, the media in Kenya, like those in many parts of the world, continues to portray women through a dichotomous motif which defines women either as good mothers who are traditional or as whores or call-girls who are modern. The virgin-whore dichotomy is more clearly noticeable in fictional portrayal of women in the electronic media in Kenya.
In this presentation, the woman is "good" if she is characterized by dependence, ineffectuality, humility and lack of initiative. But she is normally a "bad" character if she is a career lady and if she is independent and shows a bit of self-control which is not dependent on men. The most serious question which naturally follows this observation is; why do some women willingly agree to take part in plays and fictional presentations of programmes which portray them as being subordinate to men?
The answer is obviously deeply buried in the inequalities which are within our own cultures. Cultural and sometimes religious explanations are the root causes of gender inequalities and are probably the most difficult for journalists to expose and criticise. Any journalist with enough courage to criticize a religious or cultural norm which negatively defines the role of women is a crusading journalist worthy of praise. But Kenya has very few of these! Looking at gender discrimination based on culture and religion clearly makes me wonder whether a time has not come for a deliberate campaign to bring about change in some of our cultural values.
That campaign ought to be as vigorous as the present democratization movement in our society. Those expected to take the lead in such campaigns must be journalists. No gender issues can be brought up as major topics in newspapers and in the electronic media without a thorough examination of our ideologies of domesticity and motherhood. The structures of many stories about women are based on the subordinate domestic role of an African mother. The cultural roles of women in the domestic atmosphere of our society must be a subject of critical media examination. The whole political and economic structures of our entire society need to be examined to see whether they treat women fairly or equitably. Gallagher says in a world where female access to political and economic power is in most cases severely limited, their status and roles are defined within political, economic and cultural systems which tend to exclude them from effective participation. The mass media's role is primarily to reinforce definitions and identities set in a framework constructed for and by men. An overriding concern for women, therefore, should be with changes in the political and economic structure. Yet media have been observed to lag behind as an independent change agent. Even if the media in Kenya cannot be expected to initiate change, they can certainly be expected to reflect it.
Participation of Women in the Media
So far this chapter has looked at the manner in which the mass media in Kenya portray the women in general and gender issues in particular, but to do so without examining the role women journalists play and the condition of their employment as professional people would be only looking at one side of the coin. In examining the gender issues in the Kenyan mass media it is important to look at both portrayal and employment aspects of women in Kenya. If the portrayal aspect of the issue looks hopelessly bad, then that of employment can be said to be equally impoverished as the participation of women in media production is still very wanting in this country.
Apart from being numerically fewer than men, women journalists who are already in employment are experiencing an extremely difficult task in trying to climb upwards into editorship or other important positions in the editorial departments of newspapers and other media organisations. The importance of women taking part in defining "news" before journalists are given assignments has already been examined by this chapter but the sad news is that it appears as if it will be a long time before women in journalism play that pivotal role in this country.
Apart from that, the morale of women journalists is constantly being weakened by the fact that few of them have the professional independence or autonomy of writing the subjects of their choice. Many of them are forced by male editors to write about the traditional women issues of fashion, motherhood and good housekeeping. Their desire to write about the modern burning gender issues can hardly be fulfilled under these conditions. Their journalistic talents can also not be seen when they are confined to write about very limited subjects. Naturally, if any journalists continue to write about subjects of little interest to the readers, viewers and listeners they can hardly be noticed by their bosses when pay rises and promotions are being considered.
The morale of women journalists is constantly being affected by the attitude of editors towards day-to-day news decisions about what to cover and how to cover it. Women journalists are sent on uninteresting assignments because it is assumed that they cannot handle aggressive sources of news. This of course has been proved wrong locally by journalists of Catherine Gicheru's calibre and internationally by journalists like Christian Amanpour who covered the Iraqi war together with Peter Arnett though we only hear of the later as the hero of war coverage.
Because of the equality in educational background of all journalists in Kenya today and the fact that the majority of them go through the same training, it is extremely unfair to insist on giving assignments based on gender even though those assignments have nothing to do with the gender issues. The few women who were in the profession during my time as Managing Editor of the Daily Nation preferred to work for the traditional women's page and my efforts to move one whom I thought could be an excellent general reporter ended up with a resignation threat.
The selection of news under my editorship may have been based on male roles and may have ignored the role of women, while whenever they were involved, a tendency to refer to irrelevant details about their appearance, age and family status was shown. Yet not a single woman journalist complained about this tendency and I believe this was due to lack of people sensitized on gender issues both on the part of male writers of the time and female journalists in the news rooms. The reference of the then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as "The Iron Lady" was common in our headlines yet no one wondered why we made no such descriptions about any male leaders. And women journalists did not raise a finger!
Be that as it may, it is extremely important for all journalists to get equal pay for equal work but without equal opportunity this call means absolutely nothing. Occupational segregation which splits assignments into "male” and "female" jobs will always work against women journalists who will be omitted from the so called "dangerous" assignments which are invariably a source of front page stories and a stepping stone to higher and more responsible positions which inevitably go with better pay.
Dual Responsibilities of Women Journalists
Most of women journalists who are also mothers combine the dual responsibility of domestic work and professional assignments. Through my carrier as a newspaper editor no man ever asked me for permission to go home to either baby-sit or to cook for children - a constant reason for women journalists' absenteeism or early retirement from office and avoidance of working late hours. The persistent attitude in our society that housework and children are women's rather than men's domain has always worked against women journalists whose chances for promotion are and will continue to be jeopardized by the fact that they cannot work late or they cannot be recalled at night to chase sensitive stories which earn their writers recognition and promotion.
Most women journalists working for the mainstream newspapers in the country are members of the Kenya Union of Journalists, yet very few of them hold any positions in the union and hence the union does not seem to fight for gender issues in the employment of journalists in the country. The percentage of women in the Kenyan Press was said by Unesco in 1981 to be five per cent. That number must now obviously have increased and the union should be even more concerned about the mistreatment of its female members if it is to be credited with being really concerned about the welfare of all its members.
With the number of women journalists increasing, there is no noticeable increase in responsible positions held by women in the mass media. Thus, it is fair to conclude that there is considerable occupational segregation against women. One notices a clear concentration of women in less prestigious jobs in both newspaper and the electronic media where women are not only less paid than men but also where there are less chances for career development and therefore less chances for promotion. A visit to any of the Kenyan media houses would reveal that jobs of telephone operators, secretaries, tea makers and translators are mostly occupied by women whereas men hold top editorial positions. Until today there are no women journalists holding top positions in the Foreign Desk, Business Department, Sub Editor's desk, Supplements Department or even Sports Departments.
It is therefore not difficult to note that there is segregation against women both horizontally where they hold most junior positions, and vertically where they hold very few top jobs. At the technical level there is a negligible number for women in the country's broadcasting, film or the print media. The reasons managers in these industries give for not promoting women is that most women cannot work long hours or night shifts. But very little consideration is given to the fact that most women working for the mass media in this country carry the dual burden of family and work responsibilities making it very difficult for them to compete with men who have the freedom to work the hours they are assigned to or travel whenever they are demanded to by their assignments.
The only panacea to this serious professional imbalance for women journalists seems to be a demand for a legislation which would protect their rights as mothers and which would make sure there was real equal pay for equal work. May be those concerned with gender issues in journalism should be thinking about the introduction of an Equal Pay Act along with a Sex Discrimination Act. Looking at what legal action has done for women journalists in the Western World may encourage feminists to start thinking about taking the whole matter to court to fight for women's rights. Sex discrimination proceedings have been fought and won against such companies as Reuters in the UK; NBC, Newsday, Newsweek and the Washington Post in the United States.
The New York Times has avoided going to court by making compensatory payments out of court and by promising to speed up the promotion of women. Kenyan media industries should also be forced to consider the introduction of an Affirmative Action in favour of women journalists, but my fear is that these demands cannot be expected to be made by the male-dominated Kenya Union of Journalists. May be the only other solution is to seriously look into the possibilities of professionalisation of Journalism in Kenya. This would make sure all professionals, both male and female, are treated equally by employers.
14. Intrusion into Grief and Shock
The code simply says in cases involving personal grief or shock, inquiries should be made with sensitivity and discretion. This is probably the most violated code in Kenyan journalism. Reporters, backed by their editors, seem to take great pleasure in publishing pictures of people in grief and personal shock. There is hardly a paper in Kenya that hesitates to publish shocking pictures of people in grief following accidents or violent crimes. Sometimes journalists go as far as taking pictures of injured people in hospitals accompanied by their relatives and medical personnel. Yet there has been no complaint from anybody about this wanton disregard of ethical principles.
Journalists in Kenya are in a field day when others are suffering. In Britain the primary concern of their code in times of grief or shock is the protection of vulnerable people from possible press intrusion. The Press Complaints Commission (PCC), and the industry’s code, recognize that at time of grief or shock – especially in cases of recent bereavement – the attention of the Press can be unwelcome.[1] Though Kenyan journalists are normally quite free to report details of crime, accidents and even court proceedings involving gruesome examination of causes of death, they have now made it a habit of publishing pictures of bereaved people weeping and screaming.
Sometimes it is not even possible to know whether the journalists are not welcome to make such intrusions because very often the grieved people talk to journalists even as they continue weeping and yelling. In Kenya mourning period is known as matanga [2] during which all sorts of activities take place in a bereaved homestead including dancing, singing and even drinking of home made beer. A reporter covering matanga normally is readily welcome to talk to anyone about the deceased and how he or she died. This will normally be discussed superficially without actually revealing the cause of death. The real cause of death is normally a well guarded secret particularly if it was the dreaded AIDS which is still regarded a shameful disease. There are many modern Africans who do not observe matanga and may not be quite willing to talk about their dead relative to a journalist. Whenever reporters come across such a situation they should respect the wishes of the bereaved.
Whether they succeed to obtaining a story or not their approach to the bereaved should always be done in a polite and most sympathetic manner. It is certainly a better way than writing something that will lead to getting a phone call complaining of published story that distresses people in grief.
Tulloch (2001) says nowhere in the conflict between professional values of journalists and ordinary people more apparent in the UK than in the Press coverage of families grieving or victims of accidents or crimes. He says attempts from the beginning of 1990s to forbid press intrusion into grief or shock have been steadily resisted by the British PCC whose voluntary code of conduct requires journalists to make inquiries and publish materials with “sympathy and discretion.”[3]
Though the Kenyan code makes similar demands there has never been any complaints despite the journalists’ open intrusion into grief and shock. Many will probably argue that the exposure of victims of crime and accidents are in the interest of the public. The fact that many relatives of the victims willingly talk to journalists is clear evidence that they welcome reporters and photographers. The apparent lack of empathy and compassion by journalists has never been a subject of discussion in professional circles including the Media Council of Kenya.
Culturally, grief is not a private matter in Kenya. When someone dies, the whole community mourns – his household, his clan, his tribe and his whole village. This is probably the reason why journalists plus their cameras are welcome to moan with the grieving people. Westerners watching our television and reading our dailies must be thinking that journalists here pay only lip-service to the part of the code of ethics that deals with intrusion into grief and shock. The cut throat competition among media houses means the usage of stories on grief are becoming the order of the day for purposes of boosting circulations and pointing out to the authorities the increase in crime and recklessness in driving of public vehicles.
In Britain Editors’ Code of Practice Committee was in 2006 very concerned with the way journalists also covered suicide not only because of intrusion into grief and shock but also because of prevention of copycat suicides. They therefore added a specific close to their code demanding care to be taken to avoid excessive details about the method used in suicide reported.[4]
The then Code Committee Chairman , Les Hiton said: “During our annual review, we receive convincing evidence from the Samaritans ( a public charity ) and others , that media reporting of suicide often prompted copycat cases. It is an international phenomenon.”[5] The Samaritans backed the move by Editors’ committee and its Chief Executive then said: “It means we will see more informative reporting of suicide as an issue, and far less about methods and sensational aspects which don’t help and at times can genuinely be harmful.”[6] The advice by Samaritans should be taken seriously by Kenyan journalists who in my view should emulate the British on this particular issue though we must always appreciate the public’s right to know.
May be the most difficult aspect of this code which will always confront journalists in Kenya is when there is a conflict between personal grief or shock and matters of public interest. When it is absolutely essential to report on matters involving grief the code only advices journalists to make inquiries “with sensitivity and discretion”; but what is sensitivity and discretion in journalism? The Collins English dictionary defines sensitivity as the state or quality of being sensitive. It says discretion is the quality of behaving and speaking in such a way as to avoid social embarrassment or distress.[7]
Buttry (2007) says journalists intrude because a news event thrusts a private person into the public eyes.[8] He argues that even when other considerations (call) for caution, journalists must find a way to publish information that illustrates a public debate or inform the public about matters of safety. He suggests that journalists should identify the people they write about unless strong valid considerations argue for protection of their privacy. Buttry is particularly worried about a phenomenon known as “suicide contagion” where attention to one suicide is believed to contribute to other suicides in the same community.[9]
In Kenya there are not ethical rules about the coverage of suicide. Every time someone commits suicide or even tries to and fails journalists write everything they know about the incidents without any self censorship or restrictions from editors.
An example of this is a story by Cyrus Ombati of The Standard who described in details how a policeman went berserk and shot dead a colleague and his two children before he tried to commit suicide. Ombati wrote: “He sustained a neck injury while trying to shoot himself. The bullet scratched trough the neck slightly injuring him”.[10] If Ombati had more information about how the suicide attempt was done there was nothing to stop him writing about it. In Kenya reporters can describe how suicides are committed without any public outcry. On April 28, 2007, The Standard published a story by Alex Kiprotich about Thomson’s Falls and why it remains an attractive option for “those who are out to commit suicide.”[11]
The story did not lead to an increase of reported suicide cases at the falls. Alarm bells would have been sounded if Kiptanui’s story was followed by high incidents of suicide cases. Very much like in Kenya the most intrusive practice in Australia is the televising of family member’s reaction to the news of death. Whereas journalists in Kenya routinely interview relatives of people who die in accidents and crimes, in Australia they risk losing their jobs for doing so. But Australia’s cultural values are different from ours.
[1] www.pcc.org.uk
[2] Matanga is a Swahili word but is now used in many communities in East Africa. It is the period during which the community joins the bereaved people to participate in all sorts of celebrations to respect the spirit of the dead person as well as to comfort the living relatives.
[3] Ibid
[4] Editors’ Code of Practice Committee “Press Information” of June 29, 2006.
[5] Ibid
[6] Samaritan Statement Number 219432 of 2007.
[7] Collins English Dictionary. Harper Collins Publishers. 2005.
[8] Buttry, Steve. “When Do Private Matters Become News”. American Press Institute Website. Visited in 2007.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ombati, Cyrus. “ Police Shoots Dead Colleague , Two Children” in The Standard of June 5, 2007
[11] Kiprotich, Alex. “Thomson’s Falls and Its Fatal Attraction” in The Standard of April 28, 2007.
Journalists in Kenya are in a field day when others are suffering. In Britain the primary concern of their code in times of grief or shock is the protection of vulnerable people from possible press intrusion. The Press Complaints Commission (PCC), and the industry’s code, recognize that at time of grief or shock – especially in cases of recent bereavement – the attention of the Press can be unwelcome.[1] Though Kenyan journalists are normally quite free to report details of crime, accidents and even court proceedings involving gruesome examination of causes of death, they have now made it a habit of publishing pictures of bereaved people weeping and screaming.
Sometimes it is not even possible to know whether the journalists are not welcome to make such intrusions because very often the grieved people talk to journalists even as they continue weeping and yelling. In Kenya mourning period is known as matanga [2] during which all sorts of activities take place in a bereaved homestead including dancing, singing and even drinking of home made beer. A reporter covering matanga normally is readily welcome to talk to anyone about the deceased and how he or she died. This will normally be discussed superficially without actually revealing the cause of death. The real cause of death is normally a well guarded secret particularly if it was the dreaded AIDS which is still regarded a shameful disease. There are many modern Africans who do not observe matanga and may not be quite willing to talk about their dead relative to a journalist. Whenever reporters come across such a situation they should respect the wishes of the bereaved.
Whether they succeed to obtaining a story or not their approach to the bereaved should always be done in a polite and most sympathetic manner. It is certainly a better way than writing something that will lead to getting a phone call complaining of published story that distresses people in grief.
Tulloch (2001) says nowhere in the conflict between professional values of journalists and ordinary people more apparent in the UK than in the Press coverage of families grieving or victims of accidents or crimes. He says attempts from the beginning of 1990s to forbid press intrusion into grief or shock have been steadily resisted by the British PCC whose voluntary code of conduct requires journalists to make inquiries and publish materials with “sympathy and discretion.”[3]
Though the Kenyan code makes similar demands there has never been any complaints despite the journalists’ open intrusion into grief and shock. Many will probably argue that the exposure of victims of crime and accidents are in the interest of the public. The fact that many relatives of the victims willingly talk to journalists is clear evidence that they welcome reporters and photographers. The apparent lack of empathy and compassion by journalists has never been a subject of discussion in professional circles including the Media Council of Kenya.
Culturally, grief is not a private matter in Kenya. When someone dies, the whole community mourns – his household, his clan, his tribe and his whole village. This is probably the reason why journalists plus their cameras are welcome to moan with the grieving people. Westerners watching our television and reading our dailies must be thinking that journalists here pay only lip-service to the part of the code of ethics that deals with intrusion into grief and shock. The cut throat competition among media houses means the usage of stories on grief are becoming the order of the day for purposes of boosting circulations and pointing out to the authorities the increase in crime and recklessness in driving of public vehicles.
In Britain Editors’ Code of Practice Committee was in 2006 very concerned with the way journalists also covered suicide not only because of intrusion into grief and shock but also because of prevention of copycat suicides. They therefore added a specific close to their code demanding care to be taken to avoid excessive details about the method used in suicide reported.[4]
The then Code Committee Chairman , Les Hiton said: “During our annual review, we receive convincing evidence from the Samaritans ( a public charity ) and others , that media reporting of suicide often prompted copycat cases. It is an international phenomenon.”[5] The Samaritans backed the move by Editors’ committee and its Chief Executive then said: “It means we will see more informative reporting of suicide as an issue, and far less about methods and sensational aspects which don’t help and at times can genuinely be harmful.”[6] The advice by Samaritans should be taken seriously by Kenyan journalists who in my view should emulate the British on this particular issue though we must always appreciate the public’s right to know.
May be the most difficult aspect of this code which will always confront journalists in Kenya is when there is a conflict between personal grief or shock and matters of public interest. When it is absolutely essential to report on matters involving grief the code only advices journalists to make inquiries “with sensitivity and discretion”; but what is sensitivity and discretion in journalism? The Collins English dictionary defines sensitivity as the state or quality of being sensitive. It says discretion is the quality of behaving and speaking in such a way as to avoid social embarrassment or distress.[7]
Buttry (2007) says journalists intrude because a news event thrusts a private person into the public eyes.[8] He argues that even when other considerations (call) for caution, journalists must find a way to publish information that illustrates a public debate or inform the public about matters of safety. He suggests that journalists should identify the people they write about unless strong valid considerations argue for protection of their privacy. Buttry is particularly worried about a phenomenon known as “suicide contagion” where attention to one suicide is believed to contribute to other suicides in the same community.[9]
In Kenya there are not ethical rules about the coverage of suicide. Every time someone commits suicide or even tries to and fails journalists write everything they know about the incidents without any self censorship or restrictions from editors.
An example of this is a story by Cyrus Ombati of The Standard who described in details how a policeman went berserk and shot dead a colleague and his two children before he tried to commit suicide. Ombati wrote: “He sustained a neck injury while trying to shoot himself. The bullet scratched trough the neck slightly injuring him”.[10] If Ombati had more information about how the suicide attempt was done there was nothing to stop him writing about it. In Kenya reporters can describe how suicides are committed without any public outcry. On April 28, 2007, The Standard published a story by Alex Kiprotich about Thomson’s Falls and why it remains an attractive option for “those who are out to commit suicide.”[11]
The story did not lead to an increase of reported suicide cases at the falls. Alarm bells would have been sounded if Kiptanui’s story was followed by high incidents of suicide cases. Very much like in Kenya the most intrusive practice in Australia is the televising of family member’s reaction to the news of death. Whereas journalists in Kenya routinely interview relatives of people who die in accidents and crimes, in Australia they risk losing their jobs for doing so. But Australia’s cultural values are different from ours.
[1] www.pcc.org.uk
[2] Matanga is a Swahili word but is now used in many communities in East Africa. It is the period during which the community joins the bereaved people to participate in all sorts of celebrations to respect the spirit of the dead person as well as to comfort the living relatives.
[3] Ibid
[4] Editors’ Code of Practice Committee “Press Information” of June 29, 2006.
[5] Ibid
[6] Samaritan Statement Number 219432 of 2007.
[7] Collins English Dictionary. Harper Collins Publishers. 2005.
[8] Buttry, Steve. “When Do Private Matters Become News”. American Press Institute Website. Visited in 2007.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ombati, Cyrus. “ Police Shoots Dead Colleague , Two Children” in The Standard of June 5, 2007
[11] Kiprotich, Alex. “Thomson’s Falls and Its Fatal Attraction” in The Standard of April 28, 2007.
Sunday, June 3, 2007
13. Privacy
The Code is divided into three sections. The first section says the public right to know often needs to be weighed against the privacy right of the people in the news. The second part calls on journalists to stick to the issue and the last part says intrusions and inquiries into an individual’s private life without the person’s consent are not generally acceptable unless public interest is involved. Public itself must be legitimate and not merely prurient and morbid curiosity. It says things concerning a person’s home, family, religion, tribe, health, sexuality, personal life and private affairs are covered by the concept of privacy except where these impinge upon the public.
According to Robinson (2002) the concept of privacy is multifaceted. One can apply the label of privacy interest to several understanding of privacy. In addition to control your personal data, there are rights to have the moral freedom to exercise full individual autonomy and the right to solitude, secrecy and anonymity.[1] Discussing the concept of privacy Graham (1999) says there are several competing issues to address including culture, law, proof of identity and trust.[2] Most African cultures have many unwritten rules about privacy and Kenyan journalists blindly obey them with the consequence that gives both politicians and celebrities a protection they would not enjoy in the Western world.
I believe this will not last long as African culture in Kenya is changing very rapidly opening the doors to Western values which now have become part of our lives. I also believe that very soon Kenyan journalists will venture into what Goodman (1992) calls the “fuzzy area where the freedom of the Press collides with an individual’s right to be left alone”.[3] No story about corruption, for example, can be successfully written about our political leaders without examining their personal data and that of their close relatives particularly their secret bank accounts in foreign countries. As the professional quality of journalism in Kenya improves with expanding training opportunities, there is bound to be a serious engagement in investigative journalism which will in fact be the name of the game in future.
In Kenya there has never been any major complaint against media intrusion into anyone’s private life. There are many people in public life about whom the people should know, but the media have chosen to leave them alone. Some of them have become rich too quickly and mysteriously and yet their personal data, which would have been of great interest, remain secret.
It is only for a brief period when journalists were concerned about President Mwai Kibaki’s private life that they started writing about his alleged second wife Mary Wambui. When he threatened to take the matter to court journalists decided to leave the story alone though it was of great public interest as allegations of misuse of public funds in providing Wambui with state security were made. Though the Code does not explain in details what invasion of privacy entails, Robinson suggests it is when (journalists) intrude upon personal affairs of another, where the matter made public is highly offensive to a reasonable person and there is insufficient public interest in having the information disclosed.[4]
When journalists are conducting investigations regarding a matter of personal nature they have to ask themselves whether the information they seek is truly of public interest. In Kenya it is becoming very popular for both newspapers and television stations to publish pictures taken by ordinary wananchi regarding a wide range of events. This is made possible by the increasing number of cell phone cameras in the country. The people taking the pictures and submitting them to newsrooms have no idea about the existence of the code of ethics for journalists. Some of the video footages originate from what can only be described as jua kali journalists and very often they violate the ethic of privacy particularly when the pictures are taken secretly without the knowledge of the people involved in the news.
Scassa (2007) suggests editors should always have the final word in selecting pictures from wananchi and removing inappropriate content before they are published. She says that the screening mechanism, quality control, verification measures and so forth should remain in effect.[5] Though there is likely to be serious concern about jua kali journalism intruding into people’s privacy, some of the pictures they submit to editors may soon play a positive role of making public officials such as politicians, public administrators and the police realize that whatever they do is in public view whether or not journalists are present. Despite the introduction of the Freedom of Information Act in many parts of the world, Governments have always controlled the flow of information about people’s private lives. In the US there are laws that protect people’s private lives and the boundaries of these laws are expanding.[6]
In Kenya it may be useful to give both the free press and privacy equal protection depending on matters of public interest. Calvert (2005) says the primary role of the media in a democratic society is to fairly, truthfully, and comprehensively report to citizens on matters of public interest.[7] He says privacy and journalism often conflict for example the common law tort of intrusion or seclusion (which) restricts journalists’ ability to gather information while safeguarding individual privacy of both space and action. Calvert also sees the journalistic code of confidentiality as part of privacy because “ journalists often asserts and claim privacy interests of their own when gathering news such as keeping private and confidential the names of sources who have supplied them with important information.”[8]
The struggle between journalism and privacy threatens the very concept of self regulation. Hagerty (2003) argues that having eyed each other in the traditional distrust in the growing conflict between freedom of speech and personal privacy, the media and the law are on the verge of a struggle which could end in the collapse self regulation.[9] His fears are not, however, presntly relevant to Kenyan journalism or the little self regulation that is in the country mainly because journalists here do not treat private lives of people in the news as newsworthy enough to warrant investigation that would lead to publishable stories. In Britain the Human Rights Act has since 2000, given the people what most of the European Union citizens already had: legal right to free speech. It also handed them legal right to privacy and Hagerty says that rather than attempt to reconcile the two competing Articles at source, the framers of the legislations are allowing them to fight it out and have appointed the courts to referee.[10]
Though Kenya has not reached there yet it is just a matter of time before we puddle in the same canoe as the British journalists.
[1] Robinson, Allens Arthur. Focus Media. http://www.aar.com.au/. 2002. Visited in 2007.
[2] Graham, Ian. Putting Privacy in Context – an Overview, the Concept of Privacy and the Current Technologies. University of Toronto. 1999.
[3] Goodman, Walter. “Personal Privacy vs. Freedom of the Press” in the New York Times of October 8th 1992.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Scassa, Teresa. “Citizen Journalism” and Privacy. At http://www.idtrail.org/ visited in 2007.
[6] Halstuk, Martin E. “Press Rights Verses Privacy” in Columbia Journalism Review of January/February 2003.
[7] Calvert, Clay. “Victory for Privacy and Losses for Journalism?” in Journal of Law and Policy pp 649. 2005.
[8] Ibid
[9] Hagerty, Bill. “How Do We Balance Privacy with Freedom?” in British Journalism Review Vol. 14. No.1 , 2006 pages 3-6
[10] Ibid
According to Robinson (2002) the concept of privacy is multifaceted. One can apply the label of privacy interest to several understanding of privacy. In addition to control your personal data, there are rights to have the moral freedom to exercise full individual autonomy and the right to solitude, secrecy and anonymity.[1] Discussing the concept of privacy Graham (1999) says there are several competing issues to address including culture, law, proof of identity and trust.[2] Most African cultures have many unwritten rules about privacy and Kenyan journalists blindly obey them with the consequence that gives both politicians and celebrities a protection they would not enjoy in the Western world.
I believe this will not last long as African culture in Kenya is changing very rapidly opening the doors to Western values which now have become part of our lives. I also believe that very soon Kenyan journalists will venture into what Goodman (1992) calls the “fuzzy area where the freedom of the Press collides with an individual’s right to be left alone”.[3] No story about corruption, for example, can be successfully written about our political leaders without examining their personal data and that of their close relatives particularly their secret bank accounts in foreign countries. As the professional quality of journalism in Kenya improves with expanding training opportunities, there is bound to be a serious engagement in investigative journalism which will in fact be the name of the game in future.
In Kenya there has never been any major complaint against media intrusion into anyone’s private life. There are many people in public life about whom the people should know, but the media have chosen to leave them alone. Some of them have become rich too quickly and mysteriously and yet their personal data, which would have been of great interest, remain secret.
It is only for a brief period when journalists were concerned about President Mwai Kibaki’s private life that they started writing about his alleged second wife Mary Wambui. When he threatened to take the matter to court journalists decided to leave the story alone though it was of great public interest as allegations of misuse of public funds in providing Wambui with state security were made. Though the Code does not explain in details what invasion of privacy entails, Robinson suggests it is when (journalists) intrude upon personal affairs of another, where the matter made public is highly offensive to a reasonable person and there is insufficient public interest in having the information disclosed.[4]
When journalists are conducting investigations regarding a matter of personal nature they have to ask themselves whether the information they seek is truly of public interest. In Kenya it is becoming very popular for both newspapers and television stations to publish pictures taken by ordinary wananchi regarding a wide range of events. This is made possible by the increasing number of cell phone cameras in the country. The people taking the pictures and submitting them to newsrooms have no idea about the existence of the code of ethics for journalists. Some of the video footages originate from what can only be described as jua kali journalists and very often they violate the ethic of privacy particularly when the pictures are taken secretly without the knowledge of the people involved in the news.
Scassa (2007) suggests editors should always have the final word in selecting pictures from wananchi and removing inappropriate content before they are published. She says that the screening mechanism, quality control, verification measures and so forth should remain in effect.[5] Though there is likely to be serious concern about jua kali journalism intruding into people’s privacy, some of the pictures they submit to editors may soon play a positive role of making public officials such as politicians, public administrators and the police realize that whatever they do is in public view whether or not journalists are present. Despite the introduction of the Freedom of Information Act in many parts of the world, Governments have always controlled the flow of information about people’s private lives. In the US there are laws that protect people’s private lives and the boundaries of these laws are expanding.[6]
In Kenya it may be useful to give both the free press and privacy equal protection depending on matters of public interest. Calvert (2005) says the primary role of the media in a democratic society is to fairly, truthfully, and comprehensively report to citizens on matters of public interest.[7] He says privacy and journalism often conflict for example the common law tort of intrusion or seclusion (which) restricts journalists’ ability to gather information while safeguarding individual privacy of both space and action. Calvert also sees the journalistic code of confidentiality as part of privacy because “ journalists often asserts and claim privacy interests of their own when gathering news such as keeping private and confidential the names of sources who have supplied them with important information.”[8]
The struggle between journalism and privacy threatens the very concept of self regulation. Hagerty (2003) argues that having eyed each other in the traditional distrust in the growing conflict between freedom of speech and personal privacy, the media and the law are on the verge of a struggle which could end in the collapse self regulation.[9] His fears are not, however, presntly relevant to Kenyan journalism or the little self regulation that is in the country mainly because journalists here do not treat private lives of people in the news as newsworthy enough to warrant investigation that would lead to publishable stories. In Britain the Human Rights Act has since 2000, given the people what most of the European Union citizens already had: legal right to free speech. It also handed them legal right to privacy and Hagerty says that rather than attempt to reconcile the two competing Articles at source, the framers of the legislations are allowing them to fight it out and have appointed the courts to referee.[10]
Though Kenya has not reached there yet it is just a matter of time before we puddle in the same canoe as the British journalists.
[1] Robinson, Allens Arthur. Focus Media. http://www.aar.com.au/. 2002. Visited in 2007.
[2] Graham, Ian. Putting Privacy in Context – an Overview, the Concept of Privacy and the Current Technologies. University of Toronto. 1999.
[3] Goodman, Walter. “Personal Privacy vs. Freedom of the Press” in the New York Times of October 8th 1992.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Scassa, Teresa. “Citizen Journalism” and Privacy. At http://www.idtrail.org/ visited in 2007.
[6] Halstuk, Martin E. “Press Rights Verses Privacy” in Columbia Journalism Review of January/February 2003.
[7] Calvert, Clay. “Victory for Privacy and Losses for Journalism?” in Journal of Law and Policy pp 649. 2005.
[8] Ibid
[9] Hagerty, Bill. “How Do We Balance Privacy with Freedom?” in British Journalism Review Vol. 14. No.1 , 2006 pages 3-6
[10] Ibid
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
12.Recording Interviews and Telephone Conversations
The Code says except in justifiable cases, journalists should not tape record anyone without the person’s knowledge. An exception may be made only if the recording is necessary to protect the journalist in a legal action or for some other compelling reason. In this context, these standards also apply to the electronic media.
The increasing number of gadgets to record interviews in a clandestine manner makes it very tempting for journalists to record their interviews in a concealed way. Indeed John Githongo’s now famous method which led to the exposure of the Anglo Leasing scandal makes it even more attractive for journalists to imitate. The method made Githongo famous and journalists may think that the way to fame is through clandestine interviews. If hey do so, however, they would be both professionally and ethically wrong. In the Third Schedule of the published Media Bill the Code suggests that before recording a telephone conversation for broadcast, or broadcasting a telephone conversation live , a station should inform any party to the call of its intention to broadcast the conversation.
The Code explains hat this does not apply to conversation whose broadcast can reasonably be presumed, for example, telephone calls to programmes where the station customarily broadcast calls. Broadcast pluralism and diversity has made it possible for a wide spread of people to participate in any important debate concerning their lives. This of course could not have been possible without broadcast telephone conversation. The Code was drafted in such a way as not to violate rights protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights or the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights all of which defend the principles of freedom of expression.
Kenyan journalists have yet to introduce in their profession email interviews which are covered by the Code. According to Hart (2006) email interviews have become an increasingly popular technique (in America).[1] In email interviews journalists can be sure of written answers to their questions but they cannot be sure that those answers come from the people they intended to interview since they cannot see them and very often they do not even know them. Hart however says that in some newsrooms email interviews have become even more popular than telephone interviews because reporters believe “that the electronic communication is easier”.[2]
The one advantage of email interview is that it eliminates any possibilities of accusation of misquotations. Just as some reporters regard tape recorders as invaluable news gathering tools that create important documentary evidence of conversation, others regard tape recorders as intrusive devises that all but ensure that interviewees will be uncooperative .According to the First Amendment Handbook for Reporters’ Committee for Freedom of the Press, news organizations frequently adopt policies regarding surreptitious use of tape recorders. The Handbook advises journalists to record, film, broadcast or amplify any conversation “if all parties to the conversation consent”.[3]
While relatively few legal wiretaps are authorized in the United States improvements in technology have made it easier to illegally wiretap, record eavesdrop on telephone conversations.[4] Privacy Rights Clearinghouse defines wiretapping as any interceptions of telephone transmission by accessing the telephone signal itself. It defines electronic eavesdropping as the use of electronic transmitting or recording devise to monitor conversation without consent of the parties.[5]
Despite the advancement in technology used in Kenyan newsrooms there has not been any known use of electronic eavesdropping and it is not right to even imagine what kind of stories would come out of such an illegal exercise. According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, telephone tapping is officially strictly controlled in many countries to safeguard the individual privacy; and it is the case in many democracies. In theory telephone tapping often needs to be authorized by court, and is, again in theory, normally only approved when evidence shows it is not possible to detect criminal or subversive activity in less intrusive way.[6]
Martin (2005) advises journalists to ask themselves a simple question before they press the RECORD button on their tape recorders: Would recording this conversation help to make my story better? [7] She says though recording phone conversation is illegal in the 50 states and the District of Columbia, Federal law permits electronically recording a phone conversation with the consent of only one person involved in it. This “one-party” rule requires the consent of at least one person in the conversation. But for journalists this means only the reporter herself is required to know that the conversation is being recorded. Many newsroom policies, she says, do not specifically address the recording of telephone interviews, but some include closes that urge employees to obey the law.[8]
In its guide for journalists to the state of the law concerning electronic recording and its implications, the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press says at first, the question of whether or not to tape-record a telephone call seems like a matter of personal preference. It says some journalists see taping as an indispensable tool, while others don’t like the formality it may impose during the interview. Whereas some journalists would not consider taping a call with the subject’s consent others do it routinely. The Committee warns journalists about the unlawful use of the tape recorder which they say could give rise not only to a civil suit by the injured party, but also criminal prosecution.[9]
The question of whether a recording devise is in a plain view is not always straightforward, advises RCFP and gives an example of an interview between a reporter and a deputy sheriff of Oregon , when the deputy asked whether the object protruding from a reporter’s pocket was a tape recorder. Though the reporter stated that it was and that it was on, the reporter was later convicted under the state statute making it a crime to record a face-to-face conversation without informing all the parties.[10]
In April 2007 the police in Kenya summoned and questioned top Standard Group directors and senior editors for close to six hours after publishing a story based on a recorded telephone conversation between a Standard reporter and Artur Margaryan who claimed that Gideon Moi was on his top “hit list”.[11] The public has not yet been told the kind of questions the Standard team was asked by the police but obviously it had something to do with the recorded interview. What journalists should understand is the fact that a recorded story that is factually untrue does not alter the falsity of the story by the mere fact that it is recorded.
All that the tape can do is to prove that the conversation took lace but the tape does not in any way authenticate the claims made in the conversation. If Artur told The Standard that he was paid to kill Gideon Moi it does not make it safe to publish the story. The fact that his voice is recorded on tape does not make his claims true. The most interesting thing to note about the interrogation by police of The Standard Group team is that the public was not too eager to defend the paper as it was when the paper’s editorial offices were vandalized by police in 2005. Any lesson? Yes indeed. It proves a recorded conversation cannot protect anyone when that conversation is basically dangerous legally.
Ignorance of the law or certain ethical principles cannot be used as an excuse to publish falsities or recording in a clandestine manner. In 2005, for example, The Miami Herald fired Jim DeFede, a popular columnist, when he admitted taping a phone call from a distraught Miami politician, Arthur E. Telee Jr. who later committed suicide. Executive Editor Tom Fieldler acknowledges that the decision to fire DeFede was perplexing to many readers and colleagues, but any lesser punishment would send a message that the paper tolerated breaches of its trust with the readers.[12]
Writing about DeFede, Colon (2005) warns that a journalist ignores ethical principle at his or her own peril. In Kenya, however, there is yet to be a case of any journalist who has lost his or her job because of ignoring ethical principles. May be that day is not far, given that professionalization of the craft is being considered seriously by the government, media owners and practitioners. Tompkins (2005) has made a list of things to keep in mind as journalists decide whether or not to record a phone conversation with a source.[13]On the list is advice to journalists to make sure they record the permission granted by the interviewee.
When legal issues concerning journalistic interviews are examined the one that causes a lot of problem though it is not strictly an ethical issue concerns that of copyright of the published interview. Lawyers do not quite agree as to whether the copyright owner belongs to journalists or interviewees who normally come up with new ideas. In the US Federal copyright laws provide that the author is the copyright owner of the work that “satisfies the originality and fixation requirement” Rich (2004) says the US judicial decisions and opinion have been split in deciding this copyright ownership issue.[14] To avoid any misunderstanding, Rich advices journalists to obtain written consent from interviewees for conducting and polishing interviews. He says by obtaining consent the interviewer will be protected from infringement claims, except in any instance where the interviewer’s use of interview goes beyond the scope of the consent that was granted such as inaccurate quotations. His other advice is to resolve all issues of copyright ownership of the interview in a written agreement before engaging in the interview.[15]
[1] Hart, Kim. Inbox Journalism in American Journalism Review of December/ January 2006.
[2] Ibid
[3] 2003 RCPF. First Amendment Handbook.
[4]Privacy Rights Clearinghouse .RCPF 1993-2007.
[5] Ibid
[6] Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia. Visited in 2007.
[7] Martin, Meg. Think Before You Record. Poynteronline. 2005. Visited in 2007.
[8] Ibid
[9] Online Practical Guide to Tapping Phone Calls and in-person conversations in the 50 states and DC visited in 2007.
[10] Oregon v. Knobel – provided by Reporter’s Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP)
[11] “Gideon Moi on top of Artur’s Hit list” in The Standard of April 16, 2007. No.27769.
[12] Colon, Ally. DeFede and Beyond Second Chance Ethics in Poynteronline.(2005) visited in 2007.
[13] Tompkins, Al . Recording a Phone Conversation: A Checklist .Poynteronline (2005) visited in 2007.
[14] Rich, Lloyd L. Interviews: Copyright Protection and Ownership. Free Publaw Update Newsletter website vitiated in 2007..
[15] Ibid
The increasing number of gadgets to record interviews in a clandestine manner makes it very tempting for journalists to record their interviews in a concealed way. Indeed John Githongo’s now famous method which led to the exposure of the Anglo Leasing scandal makes it even more attractive for journalists to imitate. The method made Githongo famous and journalists may think that the way to fame is through clandestine interviews. If hey do so, however, they would be both professionally and ethically wrong. In the Third Schedule of the published Media Bill the Code suggests that before recording a telephone conversation for broadcast, or broadcasting a telephone conversation live , a station should inform any party to the call of its intention to broadcast the conversation.
The Code explains hat this does not apply to conversation whose broadcast can reasonably be presumed, for example, telephone calls to programmes where the station customarily broadcast calls. Broadcast pluralism and diversity has made it possible for a wide spread of people to participate in any important debate concerning their lives. This of course could not have been possible without broadcast telephone conversation. The Code was drafted in such a way as not to violate rights protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights or the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights all of which defend the principles of freedom of expression.
Kenyan journalists have yet to introduce in their profession email interviews which are covered by the Code. According to Hart (2006) email interviews have become an increasingly popular technique (in America).[1] In email interviews journalists can be sure of written answers to their questions but they cannot be sure that those answers come from the people they intended to interview since they cannot see them and very often they do not even know them. Hart however says that in some newsrooms email interviews have become even more popular than telephone interviews because reporters believe “that the electronic communication is easier”.[2]
The one advantage of email interview is that it eliminates any possibilities of accusation of misquotations. Just as some reporters regard tape recorders as invaluable news gathering tools that create important documentary evidence of conversation, others regard tape recorders as intrusive devises that all but ensure that interviewees will be uncooperative .According to the First Amendment Handbook for Reporters’ Committee for Freedom of the Press, news organizations frequently adopt policies regarding surreptitious use of tape recorders. The Handbook advises journalists to record, film, broadcast or amplify any conversation “if all parties to the conversation consent”.[3]
While relatively few legal wiretaps are authorized in the United States improvements in technology have made it easier to illegally wiretap, record eavesdrop on telephone conversations.[4] Privacy Rights Clearinghouse defines wiretapping as any interceptions of telephone transmission by accessing the telephone signal itself. It defines electronic eavesdropping as the use of electronic transmitting or recording devise to monitor conversation without consent of the parties.[5]
Despite the advancement in technology used in Kenyan newsrooms there has not been any known use of electronic eavesdropping and it is not right to even imagine what kind of stories would come out of such an illegal exercise. According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, telephone tapping is officially strictly controlled in many countries to safeguard the individual privacy; and it is the case in many democracies. In theory telephone tapping often needs to be authorized by court, and is, again in theory, normally only approved when evidence shows it is not possible to detect criminal or subversive activity in less intrusive way.[6]
Martin (2005) advises journalists to ask themselves a simple question before they press the RECORD button on their tape recorders: Would recording this conversation help to make my story better? [7] She says though recording phone conversation is illegal in the 50 states and the District of Columbia, Federal law permits electronically recording a phone conversation with the consent of only one person involved in it. This “one-party” rule requires the consent of at least one person in the conversation. But for journalists this means only the reporter herself is required to know that the conversation is being recorded. Many newsroom policies, she says, do not specifically address the recording of telephone interviews, but some include closes that urge employees to obey the law.[8]
In its guide for journalists to the state of the law concerning electronic recording and its implications, the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press says at first, the question of whether or not to tape-record a telephone call seems like a matter of personal preference. It says some journalists see taping as an indispensable tool, while others don’t like the formality it may impose during the interview. Whereas some journalists would not consider taping a call with the subject’s consent others do it routinely. The Committee warns journalists about the unlawful use of the tape recorder which they say could give rise not only to a civil suit by the injured party, but also criminal prosecution.[9]
The question of whether a recording devise is in a plain view is not always straightforward, advises RCFP and gives an example of an interview between a reporter and a deputy sheriff of Oregon , when the deputy asked whether the object protruding from a reporter’s pocket was a tape recorder. Though the reporter stated that it was and that it was on, the reporter was later convicted under the state statute making it a crime to record a face-to-face conversation without informing all the parties.[10]
In April 2007 the police in Kenya summoned and questioned top Standard Group directors and senior editors for close to six hours after publishing a story based on a recorded telephone conversation between a Standard reporter and Artur Margaryan who claimed that Gideon Moi was on his top “hit list”.[11] The public has not yet been told the kind of questions the Standard team was asked by the police but obviously it had something to do with the recorded interview. What journalists should understand is the fact that a recorded story that is factually untrue does not alter the falsity of the story by the mere fact that it is recorded.
All that the tape can do is to prove that the conversation took lace but the tape does not in any way authenticate the claims made in the conversation. If Artur told The Standard that he was paid to kill Gideon Moi it does not make it safe to publish the story. The fact that his voice is recorded on tape does not make his claims true. The most interesting thing to note about the interrogation by police of The Standard Group team is that the public was not too eager to defend the paper as it was when the paper’s editorial offices were vandalized by police in 2005. Any lesson? Yes indeed. It proves a recorded conversation cannot protect anyone when that conversation is basically dangerous legally.
Ignorance of the law or certain ethical principles cannot be used as an excuse to publish falsities or recording in a clandestine manner. In 2005, for example, The Miami Herald fired Jim DeFede, a popular columnist, when he admitted taping a phone call from a distraught Miami politician, Arthur E. Telee Jr. who later committed suicide. Executive Editor Tom Fieldler acknowledges that the decision to fire DeFede was perplexing to many readers and colleagues, but any lesser punishment would send a message that the paper tolerated breaches of its trust with the readers.[12]
Writing about DeFede, Colon (2005) warns that a journalist ignores ethical principle at his or her own peril. In Kenya, however, there is yet to be a case of any journalist who has lost his or her job because of ignoring ethical principles. May be that day is not far, given that professionalization of the craft is being considered seriously by the government, media owners and practitioners. Tompkins (2005) has made a list of things to keep in mind as journalists decide whether or not to record a phone conversation with a source.[13]On the list is advice to journalists to make sure they record the permission granted by the interviewee.
When legal issues concerning journalistic interviews are examined the one that causes a lot of problem though it is not strictly an ethical issue concerns that of copyright of the published interview. Lawyers do not quite agree as to whether the copyright owner belongs to journalists or interviewees who normally come up with new ideas. In the US Federal copyright laws provide that the author is the copyright owner of the work that “satisfies the originality and fixation requirement” Rich (2004) says the US judicial decisions and opinion have been split in deciding this copyright ownership issue.[14] To avoid any misunderstanding, Rich advices journalists to obtain written consent from interviewees for conducting and polishing interviews. He says by obtaining consent the interviewer will be protected from infringement claims, except in any instance where the interviewer’s use of interview goes beyond the scope of the consent that was granted such as inaccurate quotations. His other advice is to resolve all issues of copyright ownership of the interview in a written agreement before engaging in the interview.[15]
[1] Hart, Kim. Inbox Journalism in American Journalism Review of December/ January 2006.
[2] Ibid
[3] 2003 RCPF. First Amendment Handbook.
[4]Privacy Rights Clearinghouse .RCPF 1993-2007.
[5] Ibid
[6] Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia. Visited in 2007.
[7] Martin, Meg. Think Before You Record. Poynteronline. 2005. Visited in 2007.
[8] Ibid
[9] Online Practical Guide to Tapping Phone Calls and in-person conversations in the 50 states and DC visited in 2007.
[10] Oregon v. Knobel – provided by Reporter’s Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP)
[11] “Gideon Moi on top of Artur’s Hit list” in The Standard of April 16, 2007. No.27769.
[12] Colon, Ally. DeFede and Beyond Second Chance Ethics in Poynteronline.(2005) visited in 2007.
[13] Tompkins, Al . Recording a Phone Conversation: A Checklist .Poynteronline (2005) visited in 2007.
[14] Rich, Lloyd L. Interviews: Copyright Protection and Ownership. Free Publaw Update Newsletter website vitiated in 2007..
[15] Ibid
Monday, May 28, 2007
11.Covering Ethnic, Religious and Sectarian Conflict
The Code says news, views or comments relating to ethnic, religious or sectarian disputes should be published after proper verification of facts and presented with due caution and restraint in a manner which is conducive to the creation of an atmosphere congenial to the national harmony, amity and peace. It further says provocative and alarming headlines are to be avoided and suggests that news reports or commentaries should not be written in a manner likely to influence the passion, aggravate the tension or accentuate the strained relations between communities concerned. It concludes by saying that articles with potential to exacerbate communal trouble should be avoided.
A lot of suggested rules of the code are violated by journalists almost on a daily basis. Stories about conflict, whether sectarian, religious or ethnic, are of great human interest news value. Very often journalists convey the news about these conflicts in the most emotional manner. Today journalists covering conflicts are expected to understand the subject so thoroughly in order to not only inform readers, viewers and listeners what is going on , but also to come up with suggestions in an interpretative manner on how to solve the problems causing conflicts.
In Kenya conflicts are so widespread that hardly a paper comes out without a story or two based on them. Mwagiru (1998) says conflict in Kenya exists throughout the country about which we read every day. He lists land clashes in Rift Valley and Coast Provinces; the constitutional and legal conflict; the religious and political conflict and the environmental conflict. He asserts that against this large canvas of conflict, there is an intricate pattern of smaller, but no less important conflicts. These are conflicts within and between families and clans.[1]
If journalists have to play their role in conflict management their stories must reflect additional knowledge of the people involved in it. Mwagiru suggests that it has become evident that in managing conflict in Kenya, cultural dimensions and factors are an important and often central consideration. To him cultural influence are an important factor in two levels in term of how we perceive conflict and hence our relationship with it, and also in terms of suitability of conflict management methods and approaches that are adopted.[2]
Mwagiru’s ideas of conflict management are advanced further by Lederach (2003) who talks of conflict transformation. He prefers the term transformation because he believes whoever is engaged in constructive change of conflict should go beyond resolution and be more concerned with transforming the conflict situation into that of peace. Transformation, he argues, provides a clear and important vision because it brings into focus the horizon towards which (journalists and scholars) journey (in) the building of healthy relationships and communities, locally and globally.[3]
Whether journalists agree with Mwagiru or Lederach they have to accept the fact that the coverage of conflict today involves painting of a bigger picture than what they see on the battlefields .It is an undertaking that requires “deep knowledge, not only about what is happening on the surface, but what underlies the conflict.”[4] For this reason Ricchiardi (2006) is totally opposed to rushing journalists from far-flung locales to areas where conflicts are taking place. He argues hat there is no substitute for coverage by correspondents based in a region who are knowledgeable about its history and culture.[5]
Locally based journalists, he asserts, are connected and therefore will always cover conflict from well informed background. Their in-depth report would not only describe the conflict but also suggest how the conflict resolution or transformation could be achieved. Unfortunately Ricchiardi laments that knowledgeable and well connected journalists covering conflicts are a disappearing breed. Instead, many news organizations have turned into crisis-driven and episodic reporters who are always fast in and fast out, leaving little room for such important elements as context, cultural perspective or in-depth analysis.[6]
The views expressed by Ricchiardi are so relevant in the Kenyan situation whenever serious conflict takes place in places outside Nairobi. Whether it is in the Rift Valley, Mount Elgon or Kiambu area, journalists are rushed from Nairobi for a day or two and they always come back with sensational stories and pictures which narrate and show the seriousness of the conflict in an episodic manner but hardly do they ever dig deep enough to tell readers, viewers and listeners the origin of the conflict or possible ways of their resolution or transformation. For this to happen journalists covering conflict must build solid knowledge base to become intimately acquainted with the territory they cover. They have to be experienced people who can figure out the big picture.
Needless to say the worst thing that could happen in conflicts such as those involving land or elections is for journalists taking the views of one side or the other and publishing them without understanding the context. With terrorism becoming the mode and nature of conflict these days an attack could take place in any part of the world where there are no local correspondents. Whenever such an attack takes place new technology can always be used to give the readers , viewers and listeners the immediate coverage of the event , but professionalism demands that journalists should not be satisfied with such coverage , which should always be followed up with in-depth analysis to tell the story behind the story.
Covering breaking conflicts as they occur without any background information or in-depth analysis is what Ricchiardi calls “parachute journalism”, and even if it involves sectarian , religious or ethnic conflict sometimes journalists have to report what they see if it has occurred abruptly and without any expectation. It is like journalists being parachuted in the middle of the conflict and then transported back into the newsroom after a brief moment. The most difficult question for editors to answer in situations like that is whether the publication of such a half baked story is likely to exacerbate the conflict. With the current cutthroat competition between media houses it is difficult to see any Kenyan editor killing such a story for ethical reasons. In the words of Rome Hartman, the executive produce of American “CBS Evening News” in situations like that most editors “juggle stories and find the balance between breaking news and enterprise”. Most Kenyan editors probably handle conflict stories in a similar manner – sectarianism, tribalism or religiosity notwithstanding.
Journalists who have made a name in the coverage of conflict such as Amanpour have always taken time to study the background and various cultures of the areas they cover. Kenya today is a nation reverting to lawlessness with terrorist such as Mungiki and Taliban claiming shocking tolls in daily basis. The way the election campaigns are being conducted tribal feelings are fuelled to a level of xenophobia. Yet no Kenyan journalist has extensively unearthed the nature and real origin of Mungiki. No journalist in Kenya has deeply analyzed the tribal lords. Few editors have kept the tribal electioneering or the real dangers on Mungiki on their radar. All they do is engage in episodic coverage of conflict events caused by tribalism or Mungiki terrorists. What Kenyans know about these conflicts is based on reports published on ad hoc basis.
Ricchiardi (2006) believes it is the duty of the media to fuel national discussion by addressing questions such as what is being done in the right way and what is being done in the wrong way to end conflict.[7] If the depth and quality of reporting conflict is wanting then it only contributes to making it hard for leaders to solve the problem that cause it. The coverage of conflict involving ethnicity in Kenya worsens bad situation by dwelling too much on the views expressed by political leaders with an axe to grind. Getting too caught up with what the political leaders say about conflict, and accepting it uncritically could be what Rieder (2007) describes as recipe for disaster.[8] He gives the example of President Bush and his lieutenants (who) were making their case for the war in Iraq with nightmare scenarios of weapons of mass destruction and mushroom clouds.
The Bush example has been repeated many times in Kenyan ethnic based conflicts with journalists dutifully passing the poison to the people. Rieder observes that too often the instinct is to print one side’s allegations and the other side’s reaction, and call it a day. The fear seems to be that going deeper checking out the facts behind the posturing and trying to sort out who is right and who is wrong is sometime not “objective” and not “straight down the middle”. But that is precisely the job of journalism, he argues and contends that to give equal weight to the charge and counter charge, regardless of how bogus one of them might be, is totally deceptive.
When it becomes necessary to publish the truth about conflict journalists must always be weary of powerful politicians who would like to influence their editorial decision. The American journalists, for example, made a terrible blunder when they allowed President Bush to influence the way they covered the war in Iraq.[9] Rieder (2006) backs this view and argues that after 9/11 the Bush administration did a superb job of quelling dissent. It vigorously enforced the notion that questioning anti-terrorism policies was simply unpatriotic behavior.[10] The US new media retreated from their skeptical, not to say confrontational, approach to federal government. And the result was not pretty. According to Roberts (2006/7) one byproduct was “credulous” coverage of the administration’s case for going to war in Iraq.
If the coverage of conflict appears to require special skills and knowledge, that of ethnic conflict is even more cumbersome. In Kenya there is always latent rivalry and suspicion between some ethnic groups. This tension becomes more conspicuous during election time. Yet when reporters cover ethnic conflict in Kenya they become mindless, robotic followers of the “cult of objectivity” at the expense of truth. Reporter, as Roberts says certainly have to try and be fair but they do not have to insist on purely objective news presentation if that meant the truth got lost in the process.
Quoting Ralph McGill of the Atlantic Constitution, Roberts says objectivity is an anachronistic antidote which had emerged in earlier days when publishers were wild and reckless in pushing their bias into newspapers. It had evolved into a formula of printing all sides of the story – sometimes in the same number of words and leaving readers to make their own choices. Thus in Kenya tribal leaders fan fires of ethnic animosity through dangerous debates and all that journalists do is print their views in a ping-pong manner without pointing out the falsity of the entire debate. When engaging in political argument based on ethnic rivalry almost all Kenyan leaders have been known to mischaracterize the situation. Yet most reporters do not pin point the falsities unless they get someone else to point it out. And if that someone else stretches the truth journalists devoted to blind objectivity find themselves publishing two falsities.
If Opposition leaders said, for example, they were not opposed to Kibaki’s government because he happens to be Kikuyu and journalists had incontrovertible proof that they were, why don’t they expose the facts? Why do they have to wait until they find someone who is willing to say it on record? Roberts (2006) believes that the reporters have an obligation to engage in interpretative journalism and expose falsities by leaders engaged in conflicts especially the conflict based on race.[11]
Probably the one religious conflict that has attracted global media attention is that between Israelis and Palestinians. Both sides have targeted civilians and hundreds of lives have been lost. According to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, which normally is simply called FAIR, Israel has tried to exclude the press from the entire area in Gaza where there has been “flagrant human right abuses” including looting, mass detention, targeting medical personnel and possible extrajudicial executions” with all the injustices done against innocent human being. How have the journalists covered that religious conflict?
What FAIR was most concerned about in the coverage of Israeli attacks against the Palestinians is the usage of the word “retaliation” by American journalists. FAIR reports: “The network news shows have characterized Israeli violence as “retaliations” (which) lays responsibility for cycle of violence at the doorsteps of the party being “retaliated” against. The American journalists never use the word “retaliation” when Arabs attack Israel meaning they are the aggressors.”[12] This is the kind of reporting that the Code calls Kenya journalists to be careful about.
[1] Mwagiru, Makumi. Understanding Conflict and Its Management. The Centre for Conflict Research. 1998. Nairobi.
[2] Ibid
[3] Lederach, John Paul. Conflict Transformation. Good Books. Intercourse. 2003.
[4] Ibid
[5] Ricchiardi, Sherry. Limits of the Parachute. American Journalism Review. October/November issue of 2006.
[6] Ibid
[7] Ricchiardi, Sherry. The Forgotten War. In the American Journalism Review, August/September 2006 issue.
[8] Rieder, Rem. Counting the Spoons in the American Journalism Review of February/ March 2007 issue.
[9] Boehlert, Eric. Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over For Bush. Free Press.2006.
[10] Roberts, Gene. On the Race Beat in American Journalism Review of December 2006/ 2007 issue.
[11] Ibid
[12] FAIR in “Us Media, Palestinian attack, Israel Retaliate.” Fair website visited 2007.
A lot of suggested rules of the code are violated by journalists almost on a daily basis. Stories about conflict, whether sectarian, religious or ethnic, are of great human interest news value. Very often journalists convey the news about these conflicts in the most emotional manner. Today journalists covering conflicts are expected to understand the subject so thoroughly in order to not only inform readers, viewers and listeners what is going on , but also to come up with suggestions in an interpretative manner on how to solve the problems causing conflicts.
In Kenya conflicts are so widespread that hardly a paper comes out without a story or two based on them. Mwagiru (1998) says conflict in Kenya exists throughout the country about which we read every day. He lists land clashes in Rift Valley and Coast Provinces; the constitutional and legal conflict; the religious and political conflict and the environmental conflict. He asserts that against this large canvas of conflict, there is an intricate pattern of smaller, but no less important conflicts. These are conflicts within and between families and clans.[1]
If journalists have to play their role in conflict management their stories must reflect additional knowledge of the people involved in it. Mwagiru suggests that it has become evident that in managing conflict in Kenya, cultural dimensions and factors are an important and often central consideration. To him cultural influence are an important factor in two levels in term of how we perceive conflict and hence our relationship with it, and also in terms of suitability of conflict management methods and approaches that are adopted.[2]
Mwagiru’s ideas of conflict management are advanced further by Lederach (2003) who talks of conflict transformation. He prefers the term transformation because he believes whoever is engaged in constructive change of conflict should go beyond resolution and be more concerned with transforming the conflict situation into that of peace. Transformation, he argues, provides a clear and important vision because it brings into focus the horizon towards which (journalists and scholars) journey (in) the building of healthy relationships and communities, locally and globally.[3]
Whether journalists agree with Mwagiru or Lederach they have to accept the fact that the coverage of conflict today involves painting of a bigger picture than what they see on the battlefields .It is an undertaking that requires “deep knowledge, not only about what is happening on the surface, but what underlies the conflict.”[4] For this reason Ricchiardi (2006) is totally opposed to rushing journalists from far-flung locales to areas where conflicts are taking place. He argues hat there is no substitute for coverage by correspondents based in a region who are knowledgeable about its history and culture.[5]
Locally based journalists, he asserts, are connected and therefore will always cover conflict from well informed background. Their in-depth report would not only describe the conflict but also suggest how the conflict resolution or transformation could be achieved. Unfortunately Ricchiardi laments that knowledgeable and well connected journalists covering conflicts are a disappearing breed. Instead, many news organizations have turned into crisis-driven and episodic reporters who are always fast in and fast out, leaving little room for such important elements as context, cultural perspective or in-depth analysis.[6]
The views expressed by Ricchiardi are so relevant in the Kenyan situation whenever serious conflict takes place in places outside Nairobi. Whether it is in the Rift Valley, Mount Elgon or Kiambu area, journalists are rushed from Nairobi for a day or two and they always come back with sensational stories and pictures which narrate and show the seriousness of the conflict in an episodic manner but hardly do they ever dig deep enough to tell readers, viewers and listeners the origin of the conflict or possible ways of their resolution or transformation. For this to happen journalists covering conflict must build solid knowledge base to become intimately acquainted with the territory they cover. They have to be experienced people who can figure out the big picture.
Needless to say the worst thing that could happen in conflicts such as those involving land or elections is for journalists taking the views of one side or the other and publishing them without understanding the context. With terrorism becoming the mode and nature of conflict these days an attack could take place in any part of the world where there are no local correspondents. Whenever such an attack takes place new technology can always be used to give the readers , viewers and listeners the immediate coverage of the event , but professionalism demands that journalists should not be satisfied with such coverage , which should always be followed up with in-depth analysis to tell the story behind the story.
Covering breaking conflicts as they occur without any background information or in-depth analysis is what Ricchiardi calls “parachute journalism”, and even if it involves sectarian , religious or ethnic conflict sometimes journalists have to report what they see if it has occurred abruptly and without any expectation. It is like journalists being parachuted in the middle of the conflict and then transported back into the newsroom after a brief moment. The most difficult question for editors to answer in situations like that is whether the publication of such a half baked story is likely to exacerbate the conflict. With the current cutthroat competition between media houses it is difficult to see any Kenyan editor killing such a story for ethical reasons. In the words of Rome Hartman, the executive produce of American “CBS Evening News” in situations like that most editors “juggle stories and find the balance between breaking news and enterprise”. Most Kenyan editors probably handle conflict stories in a similar manner – sectarianism, tribalism or religiosity notwithstanding.
Journalists who have made a name in the coverage of conflict such as Amanpour have always taken time to study the background and various cultures of the areas they cover. Kenya today is a nation reverting to lawlessness with terrorist such as Mungiki and Taliban claiming shocking tolls in daily basis. The way the election campaigns are being conducted tribal feelings are fuelled to a level of xenophobia. Yet no Kenyan journalist has extensively unearthed the nature and real origin of Mungiki. No journalist in Kenya has deeply analyzed the tribal lords. Few editors have kept the tribal electioneering or the real dangers on Mungiki on their radar. All they do is engage in episodic coverage of conflict events caused by tribalism or Mungiki terrorists. What Kenyans know about these conflicts is based on reports published on ad hoc basis.
Ricchiardi (2006) believes it is the duty of the media to fuel national discussion by addressing questions such as what is being done in the right way and what is being done in the wrong way to end conflict.[7] If the depth and quality of reporting conflict is wanting then it only contributes to making it hard for leaders to solve the problem that cause it. The coverage of conflict involving ethnicity in Kenya worsens bad situation by dwelling too much on the views expressed by political leaders with an axe to grind. Getting too caught up with what the political leaders say about conflict, and accepting it uncritically could be what Rieder (2007) describes as recipe for disaster.[8] He gives the example of President Bush and his lieutenants (who) were making their case for the war in Iraq with nightmare scenarios of weapons of mass destruction and mushroom clouds.
The Bush example has been repeated many times in Kenyan ethnic based conflicts with journalists dutifully passing the poison to the people. Rieder observes that too often the instinct is to print one side’s allegations and the other side’s reaction, and call it a day. The fear seems to be that going deeper checking out the facts behind the posturing and trying to sort out who is right and who is wrong is sometime not “objective” and not “straight down the middle”. But that is precisely the job of journalism, he argues and contends that to give equal weight to the charge and counter charge, regardless of how bogus one of them might be, is totally deceptive.
When it becomes necessary to publish the truth about conflict journalists must always be weary of powerful politicians who would like to influence their editorial decision. The American journalists, for example, made a terrible blunder when they allowed President Bush to influence the way they covered the war in Iraq.[9] Rieder (2006) backs this view and argues that after 9/11 the Bush administration did a superb job of quelling dissent. It vigorously enforced the notion that questioning anti-terrorism policies was simply unpatriotic behavior.[10] The US new media retreated from their skeptical, not to say confrontational, approach to federal government. And the result was not pretty. According to Roberts (2006/7) one byproduct was “credulous” coverage of the administration’s case for going to war in Iraq.
If the coverage of conflict appears to require special skills and knowledge, that of ethnic conflict is even more cumbersome. In Kenya there is always latent rivalry and suspicion between some ethnic groups. This tension becomes more conspicuous during election time. Yet when reporters cover ethnic conflict in Kenya they become mindless, robotic followers of the “cult of objectivity” at the expense of truth. Reporter, as Roberts says certainly have to try and be fair but they do not have to insist on purely objective news presentation if that meant the truth got lost in the process.
Quoting Ralph McGill of the Atlantic Constitution, Roberts says objectivity is an anachronistic antidote which had emerged in earlier days when publishers were wild and reckless in pushing their bias into newspapers. It had evolved into a formula of printing all sides of the story – sometimes in the same number of words and leaving readers to make their own choices. Thus in Kenya tribal leaders fan fires of ethnic animosity through dangerous debates and all that journalists do is print their views in a ping-pong manner without pointing out the falsity of the entire debate. When engaging in political argument based on ethnic rivalry almost all Kenyan leaders have been known to mischaracterize the situation. Yet most reporters do not pin point the falsities unless they get someone else to point it out. And if that someone else stretches the truth journalists devoted to blind objectivity find themselves publishing two falsities.
If Opposition leaders said, for example, they were not opposed to Kibaki’s government because he happens to be Kikuyu and journalists had incontrovertible proof that they were, why don’t they expose the facts? Why do they have to wait until they find someone who is willing to say it on record? Roberts (2006) believes that the reporters have an obligation to engage in interpretative journalism and expose falsities by leaders engaged in conflicts especially the conflict based on race.[11]
Probably the one religious conflict that has attracted global media attention is that between Israelis and Palestinians. Both sides have targeted civilians and hundreds of lives have been lost. According to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, which normally is simply called FAIR, Israel has tried to exclude the press from the entire area in Gaza where there has been “flagrant human right abuses” including looting, mass detention, targeting medical personnel and possible extrajudicial executions” with all the injustices done against innocent human being. How have the journalists covered that religious conflict?
What FAIR was most concerned about in the coverage of Israeli attacks against the Palestinians is the usage of the word “retaliation” by American journalists. FAIR reports: “The network news shows have characterized Israeli violence as “retaliations” (which) lays responsibility for cycle of violence at the doorsteps of the party being “retaliated” against. The American journalists never use the word “retaliation” when Arabs attack Israel meaning they are the aggressors.”[12] This is the kind of reporting that the Code calls Kenya journalists to be careful about.
[1] Mwagiru, Makumi. Understanding Conflict and Its Management. The Centre for Conflict Research. 1998. Nairobi.
[2] Ibid
[3] Lederach, John Paul. Conflict Transformation. Good Books. Intercourse. 2003.
[4] Ibid
[5] Ricchiardi, Sherry. Limits of the Parachute. American Journalism Review. October/November issue of 2006.
[6] Ibid
[7] Ricchiardi, Sherry. The Forgotten War. In the American Journalism Review, August/September 2006 issue.
[8] Rieder, Rem. Counting the Spoons in the American Journalism Review of February/ March 2007 issue.
[9] Boehlert, Eric. Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over For Bush. Free Press.2006.
[10] Roberts, Gene. On the Race Beat in American Journalism Review of December 2006/ 2007 issue.
[11] Ibid
[12] FAIR in “Us Media, Palestinian attack, Israel Retaliate.” Fair website visited 2007.
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