Media must educate us about political office

In a country replete and, unfortunately, obsessed with politics, it is important for the media to offer information, analyses and understanding of people running for political offices.

This is especially urgent now as people become interested in and compete for elective positions as seen in the recent primaries.

The large number of aspirants indicated the growing interest in political office and, hopefully, the desire to ‘genuinely’ serve the public.

Although we know that the huge salaries and perks, and influence that the positions offer is the driving force behind the growing interest in political office, we assume that the motive for seeking political leadership is to serve the public.

Field day

That may be naïve thinking but we ‘believe’ the Salaries and Remuneration Commission and the President’s declarations that the wages and parks for those offices will be significantly reduced.

Accordingly, if we take nominated ODM MP Isaac Mwaura, and the nominee for the Nairobi’s Woman’s Representative Esther Muthoni Passaris’s word that they spent millions to campaign for the positions, the investments are not in vain. Unfortunately, politicians cannot be trusted.

The above assumptions point to the reasons for the chaotic and anarchic primaries. Reports of rigging, violence, and other malpractices often characterise our politics, and the primaries were not any different. The media had a field day given such issues make good stories.

Allegations and counter-allegations

However, despite the fact that the media played a critical role in informing us about the violence and malpractices, they largely failed to deeply interrogate the chaotic primaries and the people behind them. Granted, the number of primaries overwhelmed the media in these difficult economic and political times.

What we thus saw in the process was mere reportage of the chaos, allegations and counter-allegations. These were often hardly investigated and counter-checked before publication.

The story of Charles Njagua Kanyi, aka Jaguar, perhaps illustrates the challenges facing the media.

Various media organisations, for instance, reported the chaos that followed the election and his dash to meet with President Uhuru Kenyatta to complain about rigging in the Starehe primaries.

After investigations by the Appeals Tribunal, he was declared winner. Good, interesting (political and media) stuff. What we saw, however, was more spectacle than substance.

For example, a clip on one of the media house’s online platforms covered the crying Njagua, and a wailing supporter, without anchoring the material in a serious story to tell us what was happening.

Consequently, anybody outside Kenya’s or indeed Nairobi’s political space would not know why Njagua was crying and why one of his supporters was beseeching the musician not to accept the results. Such clips make business sense as they often attract audiences.

Motive for seeking office

But media houses and journalism should not just tell stories, but must offer consumers the information they need to make sense of the events contained in the stories.

The interest in Jaguar may be based on the fact that he is a ‘popular’ singer and thus would interest certain audiences. Nothing wrong with that.

But is there a possibility of differentiating Njagua the budding politician and Jaguar the singer? That would make for interesting reading given the fact that few understand his motive(s) for seeking political office, and even fewer know his leadership credentials. A little dig into his political life, viewpoints, ideology, etc. would tell Kenyan and other media consumers more about Njagua the aspiring MP.

And, more importantly, the people of Starehe whom he seeks to represent in the National Assembly would be more knowledgeable about the man and what he is offering.

Jaguar is used here for illustrative purposes to demonstrate the deficiencies in the media with regards to the quality of information about our current and future political leadership.

Dangerous for journalists

Without information, Kenyans can hardly make sense of the numerous aspirants that we see today.

Thus, our political decisions, and voting will be based on inadequate information, fake news, alternative facts and demagoguery. Yet, despite the challenges and little investment in investigative journalism that would tell us more about the candidates, the rot in political parties and their nomination processes, the media have done quite well in their efforts to bring us stories from different parts of the country.

This is because we are often told that the (Nairobi-based ‘national’ and ‘influential’) media are rather disinterested in far-flung or ‘remote’ areas and that stories from those regions hardly get a mention.

Intolerant of press freedom

What’s more, there are increasing concerns among journalists that politicians, their handlers and security agents are increasingly intolerant of press freedom.

This was raised during the World Press Freedom Day last Wednesday. Thus the coverage of elections has become dangerous for some journalists who  at times have to endure violence, abuse, assault and intimidation to bring us stories. It is even more dangerous for journalists operating in places such Baringo and Pokot where insecurity is the norm.

As the United Nations’ Secretary-General António Guterres pointed out during the World Press Freedom Day, “journalists go to the most dangerous places to give voice to the voiceless, media workers suffer character assassination, sexual assault, detention injuries and even death, we need leaders to defend the free media”.

Perhaps it’s the role of the media in Kenya, through serious investigative journalism and interrogation of politicians and future political leadership, to develop and hold to account such leadership.

Unfortunately, we cannot understand, make sense of and hold the leadership to account with the quality of reporting we have in most media today.

The writer lectures at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Nairobi.