Press freedom will strengthen our democracy, let journalists work

As the Press Freedom Day was marked yesterday, media practitioners took stock of the gains and drawbacks in the industry. A free Press is a prerequisite for strong democracy and this underpins the importance of a society such as Kenya to re-evaluate how the media is performing as a measure of how democratic our society is, or not.

From a global perspective, Kenya has been cited as one of the best models of media independence since it is operations are anchored in the Constitution. However, the media should not celebrate just yet. Parliament is not prohibited from ever passing laws limiting freedom of the Press. The media is still operating in an intimidating environment where threats to individual journalists have been reported this year. The prevailing economic conditions too present a threat to the media and the practitioners, some of whom work on contractual basis.