The ability of politicians to control the news agenda in Kenya at the expense of other matters of national importance is worrisome.
A good recent illustration of this is the news coverage of the ongoing strike by medical practitioners and dentists versus the news coverage of the voter listing campaigns led by President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga.
The voter listing drive was easily at the top of the news agenda, leaving the doctors’ strike, which has disrupted service provision in public health facilities in the country for over two months, playing second fiddle.
Despite the seriousness of breakdown of service delivery in public health facilities occasioned by the doctors’ strike, the news media somehow gave the voter listing drive more prominence in news coverage. As a result, Kenyans have not thought about the shutdown of the public healthcare system with the gravity that it deserves.
Instead, they have come to consider voter listing as an important issue; perhaps even more important than the doctors’ strike.
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A majority of Kenyans access healthcare services from public health facilities, meaning that the impact of the doctors’ strike is real for many of us.
On the other hand, very few to none of our politicians access healthcare services from public healthcare facilities.
They have generous taxpayer-funded health insurance that enables them to access private healthcare in Kenya and abroad.
The political class’s top priority is the upcoming elections. Not matters of public interest.
As we head closer to the general elections, the political class will no doubt continue to distract Kenyans from the sorry state of public service provision in Kenya.
The news media must guard against that and instead keep the discourse on the real issues affecting Kenyans. A study published by pew research centre in November 2016 showed that Kenyans are more concerned about public service delivery than anything else.
The war on corruption, runaway crime, poor healthcare, lack of clean drinking water, poor infrastructure and poor quality schools all featured in the top 10 concerns for Kenyans surveyed in the study.
All these are public service delivery concerns. It is therefore important that the news media make coverage of politicians’ proposals on improving public service delivery the issue at the front and centre of the political discourse this election season. Not whatever distractions that politicians will conjure up from time to time to keep the nation distracted.
Nine out of 10 Kenyans get their news and information from the news media. More importantly, Kenyans trust information they get from the media.
The news media must not betray this trust by focusing on the priorities of the political class this election season.
If the news media does not keep the public service delivery agenda at the top of the news agenda this election season, that would be a betrayal.
Kenya’s news media must take back control of the news agenda from politicians and make public service delivery the central political issue of the 2017 election period. Not political distractions served by politicians.
