President Uhuru Kenyatta defends controversial media Bill

By FELIX OLICK

Kenya: President Uhuru Kenyatta has defended the controversial media law he assented to last year which journalist are seeking to overturn in court.

The Head of State insisted that “careless and malicious journalism” can destroy a country and declared that the media should take responsibility for their mistakes.

But he said his Government was committed to media freedom as guaranteed by relevant laws and the Constitution.

“In setting up regulations for the industry, it has been the goal of my Government to ensure that the press is not bound by Government, but also by private interests. That is the spirit in which the Media Council of Kenya Act and the Kenya Information and Communication Act of last year were enacted.”

The Kenya Information and Communication Act (KICA) caused outrage among journalist who criticised it as a blow to the hard fought democracy and free speech.

The Act sanctions a government-appointed Communications and Multimedia Appeals Tribunal with sweeping powers to crackdown on the media by slapping punitive fines on journalists and media houses.

It imposes a Sh20 million maximum fine for all media houses and Sh1 million for individual journalists ruled to have breached the code of conduct.

But speaking yesterday at KICC in Nairobi, Uhuru said that media freedom comes with responsibility and maintained that “Kenyan journalists cannot afford and should not write about this country as if they lived on Mars”.

“There is no room here for a freedom of the press that does not come with an equal challenge for the media to be responsible,” he said. “It is your job as journalists to check your facts, and after you have checked, to check again.”

The President took issue with some stories published by major media houses in the country terming them “disappointing headlines”.

He said journalists should be responsible and accept when they make mistakes.

My Government expects that the Media Council, and the Communication Authority will monitor and remedy your shortcomings in a spirit of fraternal correction,” he said. “Just as you will accept fair criticism we fall short of our standards, so too should you accept blame to when you fail to hit your mark.