0 comments
Leave your comments

Tuesday, November 20th 2007, Wanted in Africa's correspondent in Nairobi

Exciting times for Kenyan journalists

These are exciting times for Kenyan journalists ahead of the general and local government elections on 27 December.

Members of the fourth estate are now as fired up as the presidential, parliamentary and civic candidates, armed to the tooth with their tools of trade: the mighty pen, tape recorders, laptops and television cameras.

Over 500 Kenyan and a further 50 foreign journalists will be covering the polls, and will be part of over 1,000 observers who will monitor the election of the head of state, 210 members of parliament and over 2,000 councillors.

Journalists are now the most sought-after professionals in the country of 33 million people, thanks to the role they will play in either creating or destroying the careers of old and upcoming politicians.

This is a big contrast to a few months ago, when some of the outgoing members of parliament and cabinet ministers looked down on journalists, with one of them referring to them as “being like baboons with loaded guns”.

That was at the height of debate in parliament over a controversial media law, sponsored by the government, to regulate the industry and oblige journalists to disclose their sources should a news story become the subject of a libel case.

However the controversial clause was withdrawn after a historic demonstration by print and broadcast journalists along the main streets in Nairobi with their mouths and cameras gagged with white tape.

And unlike in the past, when politicians and government officials called the shots, now it is the scribes who are setting the agenda by determining who is featured where in the newspapers and/or on the prime-time television bulletins and radio.

The three main presidential candidates - president Mwai Kibaki of the Party of National Unity (PNU), Raila Odinga of Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) and Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka of ODM Kenya - are at the mercy of the editors of the four national newspapers and four national television stations, whose choice of what news to make prominent will play a big role in influencing the outcome of the race to State House.

Now journalists are traversing all parts of the country with vote-seeking politicians, who are ready to do anything and everything to get what they describe as “good coverage”.

So journalists report to work in the newsroom in the morning not knowing which part of the country they will end up in at the side of any one of the presidential candidates, who are using aeroplanes, helicopters, 4x4 luxury vehicles and even motor boats to reach the electorate.

Media houses are also under pressure from viewers, readers, listeners and advertisers to come up with the best coverage of all the myriad campaigns by some of the 140 registered political parties, in a country with 42 ethnic groups.

It is for this reason that the three private television stations, Kenya Television Network, Royal Media and Nation Media Group, have invested millions of Kenyan shillings in outside broadcasting equipment and vehicles, allowing them to compete with the state-run Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, which had the monopoly on live transmissions until two years ago. Now they can also cash in on the multi-billion shillings advertising revenue from the presidential candidates and their political parties.

Nairobi is a regional hub and is used as a base by most foreign journalists covering East and Central Africa. Thanks to the competition from the overseas scribes, local journalists are now also arming themselves with mobile and wireless telephones, laptops and sophisticated satellite equipment in order to be the first to break the news.

The good old days of the note book and a pen are indeed coming to an end; now Kenyan journalists are filing their reports via the internet straight into their respective newsrooms.

back