Media bias in referendum coverage

All eyes are on the Kenyan media at this crucial time in the country’s history. Not only do readers, viewers and listeners want to be told the truth about the referendum campaigns, but they are equally eager to detect any bias among journalists who have so far been held in very high esteem. Unfortunately that respect is about to go down the drain, not because of lack of professionalism among the practitioners, but because of proprietorial interference in editorial decision making process.

Long before David Makali, the Media Institute Director, sounded an alarm bell in his column in The Star of June 28, observers were getting extremely disturbed about several conspicuous attempts to mislead the public about William Ruto’s popularity among Kenyans. According to Makali there is pressure being exerted “on editorial staff in some media houses to side with political affiliation of some shareholders.” Makali did not need to say that that pressure is probably being felt in The Standard, where Daniel arap Moi, a staunch opponent of the Proposed Constitution, is a powerful shareholder.

Newspaper readers did not need Makali to notice that The Standard of June 16 had a screaming headline accusing the government of “Double Standards” when prosecuting hate speech perpetrators. The splash story claimed “Government searchlight shone on leading opponents of the Proposed Constitution, among them Higher Education Minister William Ruto, an Assistant Minister and two MPs over claims of making hate speeches.” The tendentious Standard story was almost suggesting that the National Cohesion and Integration Commission was selectively picking up politicians from the “NO” camp and letting those in the “YES” camp get away with hate speech.

Readers must have seen the same story’s strap line claiming that “ ‘NO’ charges State biased as Ruto quizzed while Kapondi, Machage and Kutuny locked up over claims of hate speech”. To The Standard, these politicians were arrested, interrogated for framed up charges of hate speech. That is why they call them “claims of” hate speech, the publication of the same hate speeches in their own newspaper notwithstanding. As a matter of fact the hate speech by Machage was repeated by The Standard in the same story accusing the Government of double standard in charging hate speech perpetrators.

The Standard’s conspicuous support for the “NO” camp came out in the open on the June 27 issue when the paper’s Sunday edition purported to publish an analytical story it called “ Surprise as ‘Yes’, ‘NO’ step up campaign” . That gave the paper the excuse to publish a front page picture of William Ruto addressing a huge crowd next to a close-up picture of Raila Odinga accompanied by Musalia Mudavadi and Fred Gumo looking gloomy while walking towards a rally in Western Province. The Standard deliberately turned down the usage of a picture of one of the largest crowds at the Muliro Gardens in Kakamega addressed by the “YES” camp on Saturday 26th June. This was the case despite its timeliness news value.

If anyone had any doubt about The Standard’s stand on the referendum issue, then those doubts must have been put to rest on June 28, when it splashed a story it called “ ‘Yes’ back to the drawing board”. Superficially the story looked very innocent but when one turned to where it led the reader on page six then the paper’s intentions became clear. Pages six and seven were dominated by the pro “NO” stories and pages eight and nine were full of well displayed pictures of the Nakuru “NO” rally. That is a total of four full pages supporting the “NO” camp. No wonder when the “YES” team met yesterday at the Kenyatta Conference Centre they had to admit that the “NO” team had what they called “growing visibility”. This is a visibility that has been created by The Standard newspaper and KTN television station.

To make the matter worse, and to be fair to the Standard Group, this visibility was not made possible by The Standard alone. In some instances there were clear indications of the Daily Nation playing the same game. On the June 27, for example, the paper devoted two pages to the Constitution Debate. On one page was the picture of William Ruto addressing a well attended rally at Kibwezi and on the other page was a picture of Raila Odinga addressing exactly 20 people at what the paper describes in the caption as the “YES” rally at the Muliro Gardens in Kakamega.

When covering the referendum journalists at The Standard and the Daily Nation seem to have forgotten a number of ethical principles. Whether they are pressurized by proprietors or influenced by other factors they should know when their stories or treatment of pictures are less than accurate readers, viewers and listeners are so schooled and experienced as to discover the hidden intention . They are also able to deduce the possible reasons for the deliberate misguidance of the people. Readers know that a picture showing Raila addressing 20 people at a Kakamega “rally” is a mischievous and a deliberate attempt to deceive the people through contemptible hoodwinking method of picture cropping.

Whereas a picture tells a better story than a thousand words, it poses a number of questions in the readers’ minds when it is cropped in such unprofessional manner as to go against fundamental ethical principles of the Code of Conduct for Practice of Journalism on use of pictures and names which clearly says as a general rule, the media should apply caution in the use of pictures and names and should avoid publication when there is a possibility of harming the persons concerned.

The code further says manipulation of pictures in a manner that distorts reality should be avoided. The picture of Raila addressing 20 people at a “rally” in Kakamega was obviously intended to harm his popularity. Since it is a well known fact that the crowd at the Kakamega rally was among the biggest to be seen in that town recently, then the cropping of that picture was manipulating it in a manner that distorted the reality and was therefore professionally unethical.

The coverage of the referendum campaigns by the two papers, particularly The Standard, has been wanting in the ethical principles of Accuracy and Fairness. When, in 1922, ASNE first thought of Accuracy as an ethical principle, it was mainly thinking of getting the facts rights in all stories. Journalism scholars agree that the best way of getting the facts of any story right is getting all the five Ws and one H right. Even in investigative journalism the manipulation of the five Ws and one H plays a fundamental part in unearthing many more Ws from each W and as many Hs as possible from the obvious single one . For it is a fact that within any W there are many other Ws and within every H there are many more Hs.

In a desperate attempt of popularizing William Ruto Daily Nation journalists forget that principle which is so vital in interpretative journalism. When The Nation was reporting the “YES” camp’s plan to strategize its future campaigns in its 29th June edition, for example, the paper correctly balanced the “YES” views with the views of William Ruto who was quoted saying “They (Greens) have missed the point. The choice on August 4 will be voting ‘Yes’ for a divisive document with controversial clauses on religion, counties and devolution and ambiguous clauses. On the other hand voting ‘No’ will be to enable us give ourselves an opportunity to correct the clauses and enact the constitution that will Unite Kenyans.”

All that is good reporting. But it is reportorial, conveyor belt reporting. It is the obsolete type of reporting. Interpretative reporting, which is the most advanced type of reporting, demands that reporters should explain all the hidden meanings of a story. That is why it is called interpretative reporting. Given that fact, the reporter who injected William Ruto’s opinion in the story about the “YES” camp’s strategy would have been more professional by explaining to the readers what William Ruto’s suggestion entailed. This, the reporter should have done even without consulting William Ruto.

The interpretation would have demystified Ruto’s ambitious suggestion of correcting the Proposed Constitution and enacting it anew. The reporter was also professionally obliged to explain to the readers how that ambitious suggestion could be accomplished both financially and legally. After voting “NO” how much money would the country need to organize another referendum which William Ruto wants? What does the law say about the whole process? Can one just amend the Proposed Constitution and give it back to the people without going back to Parliament? What are the chances of Parliament passing the Ruto amendments? What does the Constitution of Kenya Review Act of 2008 say about the whole issue? That way the ethical principle of Accuracy would have been achieved more professionally.