Not yet uhuru for the media

World Press Freedom Day was celebrated on May 3, 2016. The celebrations come 25 years after the adoption of the Windhoek Declaration on Promoting Independent and Pluralistic Media in 1991 in Namibia. The UN General Assembly established the day in 1993 to mark press freedom.

Starting with the independence Constitution to the current one, there have been positive developments. While Kenya has not reached the optimum in realising freedom of expression, a number of milestones have been achieved. On paper, the country has a very vibrant and diverse media; 140 radio stations spread across the country, 67 TV stations are on air following the migration from analogue to digital, four daily newspapers and nearly 100 periodic publications. With nearly 100 bloggers, the online space is also very active. Periodic press conferences by the president at State House and tweets from Government functionaries give the impression all is fine in terms of press freedom and access to information. We currently have 120 media training institutions and nearly 2700 journalists accredited by the Media Council of Kenya.

Laws like the Kenya Information and Communications Amendment (KICA) and Media Council acts, Books and Newspaper Registration Act, Kenya Broadcasting Corporation Act and Public Security Act among others need an urgent review to make them compliant with the Kenya Constitution 2010. The declaration by the court that Article 29 of KICA was unconstitutional was a major victory for Kenyans. Such moves only come second to the repealing of sections 55, 56, 57 and 58 of the Penal Code Act, Cap 63.

Indeed it was anticipated that the media landscape in Kenya would undergo significant positive changes with the enactment of laws to actualise articles 33, 34 and 35 of the Constitution of Kenya through the Media Act and KICA. This has become the bane of press freedom in the country.

Once the two acts were passed, media players went to court seeking Constitutional interpretation of the mandates of the Media Council of Kenya and the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA), in terms of jurisdiction on professional matters, content and media related complaints. For the past three years, the matters are still in court, and for that reason the council currently has no board or a complaints commission to deal with media complaints. As such, people are going back to seek court interpretation.

In such a situation, and even after the Supreme Court ruled that the Media Council of Kenya was the envisaged body in Article 34, and despite even in the spirit of cross-jurisdictional mandate, bodies including the Kenya Film and Classification Board (KFCB), are now issuing bans and threats to media on content and professional issues. CA has already released the programme code that is purely a replication of the Code of Ethics for the Practice of Journalism contained in the Media Council Act 2013.

The jury on whether the code contained in the act supersedes the rules and regulations released by CA and KFCB is out there. The introduction of the Government Advertising Agency (GAA) to oversee and coordinate adverts by the Government is being viewed suspiciously. In Kenya, as elsewhere, advertising revenue is a contributing factor to media industry stability and by extension an enabler for freedom of expression.

While the reason for establishing the GAA are noble in terms of harmonising Government advertisement and ensuring both mainstream and alternative media get a fair share of Government advertising revenue, it has the potential of being politicised and used for stifling press freedom by denying independent media adverts. Already, the Media Owners Association has raised the issue of Government owing media houses billions of shillings in unpaid government advertising.

A number of journalists have continued to face harassment from different quarters but there has never been a conviction of a person involved in harassing journalists. The circumstances of the death of Francis Nyaruri (Kisii) and John Kituyi (Eldoret) are yet to be established, while cases of harassment of David Odongo (Standard), Nehemiah Okwemba and Reuben Ogachi in Malindi and Purity Mwambia have not been resolved. The attempted shooting of Nakuru based journalists and the suspicious case of Kenya Forestry officers arresting journalists doing an investigative story on illegal businesses in the Mt Kenya forest are yet to be cleared.

With the 2017 elections in sight and the heightened tribalism, the media needs to pull in the same direction to advocate for the promotion and protection of press freedom. Journalists need to support each other and the creation of structures that enhance media professionalism, accountability and welfare is necessary. Parliament passing the Right to Information bill is a major plus for the media in terms of doing in depth factual stories and hopefully it will be signed into law.