Taking down media not a smart idea, it's an escape from reality

In mid-2016 or thereabouts, I received a call from an unsaved number. I wanted to mind my business and call back later, but then the caller called repeatedly. I picked it up.

It was Dennis Itumbi on the line, the then Senior Director, Digital Innovation and New Media at State House.

He was seeking a right of reply for a column that Kipkoech Tanui (one of our senior Editors and columnist) had written. 'What happened at State House?' (The Standard, Friday, July 8, 2016) was the subject.

There were reports that the original PSCU, which was formed in 2013 when President Uhuru Kenyatta took over office, had been disbanded. Word had it that PSCU had descended into a free-for-all fighting between directors and then head of the Unit Manoah Esipisu (now the High Commissioner to the UK).

The dysfunction in PSCU was manifest in the issuance of conflicting statements about presidential functions and pronouncements.

After consultation, it was decided that we offer Mr Itumbi a right of reply on the OpEd pages. Ordinarily, the article would have been published as a letter to the editor.

In his opinion piece, Mr Itumbi attacked the media for sourcing a story from unnamed sources. Nothing wrong with that, really.

"The story of the alleged disbandment of the PSCU; the firing of senior directors and related short stories was a spectacular failure of the art and craft of journalism."

"The media published and aired a story based on an anonymous source who lied and after the mistake was done, they could not retract or apologise and instead chose to listen to the same anonymous source lie to them," he wrote.

Sections of the media had attributed the alleged sacking of the four to a protest memo sent to The New York Times over a story by James Verini (The Prosecutor and the President, June 26, 2015) about the failed crimes against humanity case President Uhuru Kenyatta faced at the ICC.

The truth is, he and his four colleagues later left State House- under a cloud.

They were sent to Harambee House before they crossed over to the Office of the Deputy President - across the road- as the estrangement between President Kenyatta and his deputy burst into the open.

Fast forward to 2022, and it seemed as if Mr Itumbi still had an axe to grind with mainstream/legacy media.

During the much-fought and divisive 2022 elections campaign, for example, he portrayed the media as entitled, patronising, irresponsible and complacent.

To his credit- and many others- their candidate won. The media didn't have a candidate despite his insistence.

When he is not revelling in President William Ruto's electoral victory in the August elections, he uses his Social Media assets to wage a campaign of calumny against media houses and media personalities whom he felt were critical of his boss in the campaign.

And with that, he is spreading the grievance culture that likes to play the victim of evil media and wallows in self-pity.

The media essentially is a gatekeeper between elected politicians and the public. It is not a conveyor belt, neither is it the alternative government nor the opposition.

Truth and fidelity to facts are virtues that inspire most journalists, perhaps including him. He set up the HNIB as an alternative and to shine a spotlight on what is hidden- even to mainstream media.

Yet far from being revelatory, a lot of what he publishes is unedifying, to say the least. The bar is still high for him. He couldn't hold the candle to many of us.

There is an antithesis between what he propagates and what he uses to drive his agenda.

Sadly, there is precedence in what he is doing. Previously his unrestrained, wild attack on civil society presaged the dreadful clampdown soon after the first Jubilee administration in 2013. Civil society even earned the derogatory moniker 'evil' society.

And for far too long, Mr Itumbi has been taking a wrecking ball to the media - another institution underpinning our democracy.

He may never appreciate the damage this caused to the civil society who together with the media, the Church and the Law Society - were at the forefront of the Second Liberation struggle that yielded more freedom of expression and association that he now enjoys.

He may not admit it but what he must have realised in those low moments in their estrangement from State House is that those cast out of power need in their corner, not just public spiritedness. They also need independent and speedy courts, an active civil society and a media that barks loudly and bites hard.

Mr Kipkemboi is the Partnerships and Special Projects Editor, Standard Group