Your Job Is Not To Dictate: LSK Corners CA Over Warning To Media Houses

The Law Society of Kenya (LSK) on Thursday, July 18 expressed belief that the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) was sanitizing the government after it threatened to take decisive action on media platforms found to have broadcast content against the laws of the Constitution, targeting their coverage of the anti-government protests.

In a statement obtained by Viral Tea, LSK President Faith Odhiambo took note of the Authority’s letter to the Nation Media Group (NMG) as well as several media houses warning them on how the recent protests and human rights violations have been reported.

According to the Authority, the Kenyan media entities had compromised objectivity and balance in the reporting of crime, security operations and crisis situations, and decried the airing of dead or wounded people as a cause for shock among the public and families of victims.

LSK, while it expressed appreciation of the concerns raised by CA, reminded the Authority that their role as regulators does not extend to determining what news is disseminated but rather how it is disseminated in a way that does not contravene the express provisions of Article 33 of the Constitution.

Communication Authority of Kenya (CA) headquarters in Nairobi. /FILE

“We put the Communication Authority to task to qualify the alleged bias in reporting by the media. We take the view that it is not the duty of the media to sanitize unconstitutional violations of human rights through toned-down or favourable reporting,” Odhiambo schooled the Authority.

“We wish to point out that there is no neat, balanced or objective way of reporting rogue police brutality, extrajudicial killings, government impunity and lack of integrity. The media have a constitutional duty to report information as it is, and the Communication Authority cannot extinguish that duty through baseless threats and unqualified warnings.”

LSK also noted with concern that the Authority has long suffered the idiosyncrasy of only being diligent when the Government is being put to task by the sovereign people. 

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, idiosyncrasy refers to a strange or unusual habit, way of behaving, or feature that someone or something has.

“We remind the Communication Authority that their duty is solely owed to the people of Kenya, not to the government. The airing of shocking images is neither novel nor peculiar to Kenyan media.

“These images are as a result of heinous actions whose existence must be informed to the public and whose perpetration must be called out in the strongest terms possible,” the society continued.

While LSK was in agreement that the media ought to maintain respect for the victims and their families, it affirmed that dissemination of information is a fundamental principle of democracy and is necessitated not only by Article 33 on freedom of the media but equally by Article 35 on access to information. 

Odhiambo warned that the society would challenge any actions by the Authority that interfere with the freedom of the press.

“We will challenge any intended interference with the constitutional freedom of the media and limitation of the Kenyan people’s access to information,” added the statement.

CA had accused a majority of the mainstream Kenyan media stations of going overboard and violating the confines within which media practitioners are expected to remain.

According to CA, the right to freedom and independence of the media did not extend to propaganda for war, incitement to violence, hate speech or advocacy of hatred.