Is press freedom a reality in Kenya?

This year’s World Press Freedom Day is being celebrated this Thursday in Accra, Ghana, the first time in Africa. It is the 27th anniversary of the Windhoek Declaration, the premise upon which the day is based.

Media freedom refers to whether the policy and legal environment in which the media is operating in a given country is enabling or restrictive.

Several scholars and activists have maintained Kenya’s media is under attack. Kenya has dropped in global rankings of press freedom over the past decade, especially under Jubilee regime.

Research by the World press freedom index covering 180 countries places Kenya in the bottom half, where several other previously unstable countries have lifted themselves out.

In 2017 rankings compiled by Reporters Without Borders, Kenya’s standing was comparable to Kuwait and Lebanon.

The shutdown of independent TV stations and threats to journalists further erodes the ratings currently classified as ‘problematic’ in the 2017 World Press Freedom index.

Transparency International (TI) while releasing its 2017 corruption perception index in March 2018 painted a grim picture of media practitioners. The TI findings showed 368 journalists were murdered between 2012 and 2017, out of these 70 were murdered while covering corruption stories.

The constitution of Kenya recognizes media freedom. The legal environment for media to operate in is anchored in the Constitution under Articles 34, 35 and 36.

These are further expressed in other legislation such as the Media Council of Kenya Act of 2013 and other supportive and facilitative laws such as the Kenya Information and Communication Act (2013) and Freedom of Information Act (2016).

Media Council of Kenya Chief Executive Officer David Omwoyo said although Kenya has 179 radio stations, 60 television stations and more than 60 print publications, more needed to be done to secure media freedom.

“Given that the public sector comprising ministries, departments, agencies, including universities and public enterprises, is one of the largest spenders on advertising, could the government advertising agency be an opportunity for the government to direct or at the very least strongly influence editorial content through commercial inducement?” omwoyo asked.

On January 30, 2018, the Ministry of Interior directed the Communications Authority to switch off transmission by three leading TV stations; KTN News, Citizen and NTV over their live coverage of the controversial swearing-in ceremony of Raila Odinga as the people’s president at Uhuru Park, Nairobi.

What can we learn from such media shutdown and how can we attribute it to the independence of media in its editorial decision-making by not being swayed by political interests?

Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) maintains that governments are using increasingly sophisticated tactics to control information and limit criticism.

CPJ put out a special report on Kenya in 2015 looking at the ways in which the government had paid lip service to press freedom but has actually failed to protect journalists or freedom of the press in a meaningful way.

“I think the media is seeing itself under a lot of pressure in Kenya, which is troubling in part because Kenya has been a leader in East Africa when it comes to protecting the press,” CPJ's advocacy manager Kerry Paterson told DW.

Journalists who covered Kenya’s 2017 general elections and the October 26 repeat presidential election worked in a challenging environment. Attacks against them showed a rise in severity during prolonged electioneering period that saw journalists face physical attacks, arrest, being denied access to some areas and receiving various forms of threats.