Gachagua pulled off Trump card on media

A vibrant media is essential for any society. When independent journalism is threatened and freedom of speech curtailed, it signals beginning of bigger systemic problems.

Following the 2022 elections and the Bomas chaos that ensued, media content became somehow polarised, with TV stations beaming conflicting data as vote counting progressed. As a result, mass media scholars observed a rise in what is called ‘news avoidance.’

Millions of viewers, readers or listeners either selectively consumed news that aligned with their beliefs or avoided it altogether if it seemed too negative or contrary to their views. The divide between Azimio and Kenya Kwanza supporters was like day and night.

A Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism survey found that 36 per cent of news consumers, particularly those under 35, avoided news due to its negative impact on their mood. Mr James Musyoki from Makueni even confessed to dismantling his television to avoid watching news.

Many others, disillusioned by many post-election events, including Azimio’s botched red-carpet party outside KICC, preferred to turn off their TV sets during prime-time news. That same period, newspaper sales plummeted. Also, the unforeseen trend led to a decline in media trust.

Amid the ‘news avoidance’ crisis, however, Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua launched a series of scathing attacks against media houses, accusing them of siding with Azimio’s Raila Odinga and failing to ‘move on’ after his shock loss.  

Speaking in Embu in June last year, Gachagua called the press ‘gossip mongers’ and later claimed that journalists were inciting Kenyans against the Finance Bill 2023.

“It’s time to call out the media. You worked with Azimio to fight President William Ruto, but you failed,” he told journalists in Nyandarua days later.

Mr Gachagua’s barefaced onslaught on the media became a regular feature of his speeches. “Don’t bother about them. Forget about these characters since we know their sponsors,” he often said, offering no evidence. “We defeated the media and their candidate,” he went on and on.

Like a dog on a bone, his rhetoric extended to backing former CS Moses Kuria who made hostile remarks against journalists over an investigative story on the edible oil scandal. Mr Kuria went so far as to threaten to fire State officials who advertised with the media firm that carried the report.

Over the years, history is replete with government hostility towards the media. Journalists have been compared to monkeys with loaded guns and newspapers dismissed as ‘meat wrapping’ material. Yet, the media has proven resilient, always pushing back against attempts to suppress it. The Media Council of Kenya has also been alert.

Ironically, when Mr Gachagua eventually found himself at odds with President Ruto, it was the same media he vilified that offered him a platform to share his side of the story.

In times of isolation, he gave interviews at will, engaging freely with journalists and calling them ‘wonderful’ people. On Monday, he was on air for two hours. The tables had turned!

The ‘truthful man’ joins the list of politicians who sought to undermine media freedom but eventually relied on it for their survival. He is Kenya’s version of former US President Donald Trump and Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines who hated the media but used it to build support.

The lesson is clear – leaders must unconditionally respect the media. What they often engage in is ‘elite manipulation,’ using their influence to undermine and sometimes praise the press, depending on their circumstances. But since it plays a vital role even for those who hate it, the Fourth Estate must be allowed to do its work.   

Attacks on the media rarely sit well with the public. The press will always be defended by citizens when there are attempts to suppress it. But to maintain trust, newsrooms must endure manipulation to defend truth. As for Mr Gachagua, he learnt firsthand the value of a free press.

-The writer is a communications practitioner.