For the media and UhuRuto, it has been a labour of love

What you need to know:

  • The typical UhuRuto scapegoating aside, the President understands that in many serious democracies grievances around media ethics are best left to professional bodies.
  • Indeed, he is himself a past beneficiary of our robust self-regulation system, having lodged a complaint against The Star newspaper over a perceived offensive article with the Media Council of Kenya in February 2012, appeared before the council’s arbitration panel and got a favourable decision in May last year.
  • Clearly, the President’s current war against the media can’t be about any irresponsibility on the part of journalists. Nothing has changed in the media regulation environment to warrant the introduction of draconian laws.

President Uhuru Kenyatta has never concealed his dim view of the local media. Before he became President last year, Mr Kenyatta rarely granted interviews to local journalists, preferring to demonstrate his deep sense of patriotism by talking to BBC and other international media worthies on the more serious matters like his family wealth.

Not long ago, he joked about how he paid so little attention to the criticism of his government in the media that it was his deputy William Ruto who occasionally briefed him on what he [Mr Ruto] had read in the newspapers. Mr Ruto has himself dished it out in his characteristic Sugoi village-boy style, once sharply dismissing the newspapers as only good enough for kufunga nyama (wrapping meat).

Ironically, those moments of UhuRuto tongue-lashing coincided with their extended honeymoon holiday in the media when readers and viewers would be regaled with lullabies of their personal chemistry, digital-savviness and coolness, and critics would be reminded about the need to “accept and move on”.

As I warned in this column then, the media were literally hugging the bear. The reality is only beginning to sink in, the beast having bared its teeth with a monstrous set of laws that just fall short of declaring journalists potential terrorists or terrorist sympathisers.

MEDIA FREEDOM

In all likelihood, the Security Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2014, which among other things, effectively hands the police powers to edit stories about terrorist attacks before they can be published and limits media freedom in many other ways, will be passed into law by the Jubilee-dominated Parliament.

The President appeared to be rallying his parliamentary troops to do just that in his vitriol-filled Jamhuri Day speech last Friday, insisting there were no freedoms to be curtailed by the proposed laws “unless you are a terrorist yourself”.

The typical UhuRuto scapegoating aside, the President understands that in many serious democracies grievances around media ethics are best left to professional bodies.

Indeed, he is himself a past beneficiary of our robust self-regulation system, having lodged a complaint against The Star newspaper over a perceived offensive article with the Media Council of Kenya in February 2012, appeared before the council’s arbitration panel and got a favourable decision in May last year.

Clearly, the President’s current war against the media can’t be about any irresponsibility on the part of journalists. Nothing has changed in the media regulation environment to warrant the introduction of draconian laws.

What has changed is a media tiring of its labour of love with UhuRuto and increasingly reclaiming its role in society; exposing the government’s weakness in dealing with the country’s national security problems, opening wananchi’s eyes to the PR stunts and getting under the President’s skin.

Otieno Otieno is chief sub-editor, Business Daily. [email protected]. @otienootieno