Why media too must toe the integrity line


By Fadhili Kanini

An interesting scenario played out recently during a heated live TV show when a presidential hopeful challenged one of the panellists to declare if he did not have partisan interests in a rival political camp.

Of course the concerned panellist denied the claims vehemently, arguing that he was a freelance consultant unattached to any partisan political party encumbrances, affiliation or interests.

This little incident aroused enough curiosity with regard to the matter of our media’s blatant dalliance with or direct involvement in, politics.  This matter is a serious leadership and integrity concern. 

The fact that media are the foremost watchdog in matters involving fair treatment of the voiceless brings every member of the Fourth Estate into sharp focus insofar as integrity and moral probity are concerned.

This is particularly so given that an accusing finger has been variously pointed at the media as a catalyst in Kenya’s ugliest election debacle that occurred four years back. 

Whichever way you look at it, the cause of the near-holocaust that was the PEV is nothing but ethnic rivalry.

This rivalry did not pop up one sunny morning from Jupiter. No! It was the culmination of serial diatribe spewed in calculated and malignant measure by tribal hate-mongers mainly through the media.

True, the escalation of ethnic hate, fear and suspicion was spread through several outlets but king of them all was mass media, especially vernacular FM stations.

To enforce an efficient integrity code in the conduct of public affairs in Kenya in line with the current Constitution, it is paramount that mass media in all their vestiges be involved. Yet, the irony is in order to do so media themselves have to bathe in the Jordan seven times to rid this otherwise indispensable industry of the leprosy it currently suffers with regard to integrity.

Political instincts
It will be naive to imagine that radio presenters and writers in the dailies do not have political instincts that lead them to preferred candidates. This, in fact, is their right as citizens. 

However, the problem arises when the support of candidate B against candidate A is played out in discourses driven by partisan media to the extent that the result is gross incitement of the masses.

Whether it is in a political or ethnic supremacy contest, an openly partisan media will invariably stoke chaos and despondency. The moral basis to enforce or demand upright leadership and integrity as espoused in Chapter Six of our new Constitution can only be of real meaning to mass media if objectivity, integrity and fairness are seen to govern the fraternity – period! 

Short of that, the entire media stands adjudged as incompetent to comment on, let alone spearhead, our country’s unceasing war on impropriety where public resources are concerned.

This brings me to my point.  Another presidential contest—whose stakes are much higher than those of 2007— is round the corner.

Yet the Fourth Estate has not convinced Kenyans that, come Election Day, we shall not have to deal with the 2007/8 PEV shenanigans writ large courtesy of runaway media hype and subjective coverage of political activities now beginning to gain momentum.

The one way of ensuring that no flare-ups erupt after the next round of elections is to insist that full disclosure by journalists and commentators sympathetic to certain presidential candidates or political camps be enforced early enough. 

If we choose to continue pretending that scribes are impervious to political contamination, we shall, by extension, be choosing to sanction lies and hypocrisy in our society.

This trend is dangerous because, in our local environment, politics is the salt with which development is spiced, just as proverbs “... are the palm-oil with which words are eaten” according to Chinua Achebe, he of Things Fall Apart and The Trouble with Africa fame. 

Fadhili Kanini is a communication and PR associate and practitioner in Nairobi.