Transcript
BOB GARFIELD:
And I'm Bob Garfield. In late December, charges of voter fraud in Kenya’s national election sparked riots across the country. As the violence escalated, Kenya’s newly reinstated government imposed a ban on all live radio and TV broadcasts, quote, “in the interest of public safety and tranquility.” Some broadcasters stopped reporting on the conflict altogether. As human rights were brutally violated, music and comedy filled the nation’s airwaves.
On Monday, Kenya’s National Dialogue and Reconciliation Team pledged to lift the ban amid pressure from press freedom groups and the Kenya Editors Guild. In theory, Kenyan journalists could have reported whatever they wanted all along as long as that reporting wasn't live.
But Ida Jooste, of the media advocacy group Internews, says that the seemingly mild press restriction triggered a rash of confusion and self-censorship, especially among Kenya’s fledgling vernacular press.
IDA JOOSTE:
Well, first of all, the irony is that very few of the broadcasters actually have the technology to effect any kind of delay whatsoever, so even if they did want to implement it, they couldn't.
You should also realize that there’s been an absolute explosion of FM radio stations in Kenya. Many of those are staffed by junior people, people who had never, ever even covered any kind of international stories, so I guess some of them were simply scared.
And then there is also the fact that two of the main media houses in Kenya have behind them, when it gets to ownership, sizeable political muscle. So at that point, editors just weren't bold enough to withstand the pressure from a government-imposed ban. In time, media houses and, in fact, the Editors Guild and, of course, journalists, started responding more appropriately.
BOB GARFIELD:
What was the state of the press in Kenya before the disputed election results?
IDA JOOSTE:
It had been making great strides. Increasingly robust behavior started to emerge from newsrooms all over Kenya, and it has been getting better and better. So it’s particularly sad that this ban took journalism in Kenya back some five to ten years.
BOB GARFIELD:
Were there any threats? Was anyone imprisoned as a result of the reporting?
IDA JOOSTE:
No one has been imprisoned, but the threats relate more to the fact that there is a huge schism within Kenyan society and that journalists, sometimes by simply telling the truth, are perceived to be taking sides with one side or the other.
People want journalists to take sides and perhaps don't even quite know how to respond if they are simply reporting fairly and in a balanced way.
BOB GARFIELD:
Well, this has echoes of Iraq. It has echoes of Yugoslavia. But most chillingly, it has echoes of Rwanda. And in that case, the media was found in some ways to be culpable because radio stations, for example, were inciting violence via just the worst kind of hate speech.
I understand that among Kenyan radio stations there has been a similar pattern of hateful and even violent messages.
IDA JOOSTE:
Yeah, although I should say that, of course, what one saw in Rwanda, and many people who've seen the movie Hotel Rwanda will remember those brutal scenes when the airwaves were actually taken over, whereas in this case it’s been much more subtle, and has perhaps not been in any way policy, but it’s still chilling.
United Nations Development Programme did media monitoring in the run-up to the election and found that several vernacular stations were guilty of hate speech. Both those stations have since tried to address this, but they do admit they were at a loss. Because of the subtlety of it and because the broadcasts are in a vernacular language, you often find cultural, very subtle references that are perhaps more difficult to arrest.
Sometimes it’s an interviewee or perhaps somebody who calls in to the station, because many of these programs are interactive, who says something either very inflammatory or often much more subtle but, of course, what it translates to is that the audience of this vernacular station hears this. And we know that the broadcaster must take responsibility for whatever goes on the air.
BOB GARFIELD:
Have the media begun to figure out how to navigate the circumstances with the government and with the violence and do more of what you expect news organizations to do?
IDA JOOSTE:
Yeah. Well, you know, in late January, the Editors Guild said that it would take the government to court, which did happen. And then we saw - on the 30th of January, the organization I work for, Internews Network, organized a roundtable, and we wanted to encourage some kind of self-audit. We asked the question, what went wrong.
There was just an overwhelming sense of admission of guilt, ranging from, you know, not keeping the hate speech in check, to not being robust enough about the ban, to not telling stories that coexist with the violence, in other words, stories of hope and reconciliation, to not framing this conflict within any kind of international context.
So it was quite incredible, the extent to which journalists admitted where they had gone wrong and are seeking to find new ways to address it.
BOB GARFIELD:
All right, Ida. I thank you very much for joining us.
IDA JOOSTE:
Thanks a lot.
BOB GARFIELD:
Ida Jooste is the Kenya resident journalism advisor at Internews.