I am pleased to notify you that this is my very first public assignment since being elected as the President of the Kenya Editors’ Guild on Saturday, April 29, 2023.
What better way to celebrate it than with journalists in the Eastern African region- whom we hold dear, and bear in our hearts the duty of care to offer solidarity when the situation demands.
I’m delighted to stand before you all on this day that comes a day ahead of World Press Freedom Day and fully conscious that I’m speaking to a community of journalists from the Eastern Africa region to discuss the role of journalists in combating violent extremism. This could not have come at a better time for us here in Kenya.
The role of media in the governance process is growing with emerging dynamics with each coming day, making it imperative that media must, at all times and levels, remain alive to the changing circumstances of the work environment and the attendant responsibilities and dynamics.
As journalists, the need to understand the impact of ordinary reportage has now introduced the need for sensitivities that must be addressed in every story aired on TV or Radio and published in both print and digital media platforms.
In the highly connected world, we live in, our role as professionals communicate incidences of terrorism cannot therefore be understated.
It is no longer the role of security forces alone to face terror merchants. Journalists have a role to counter and prevent the proliferation of terrorist narratives to deny them the legitimacy they would wish to claim. Today’s journalists must craft the story effectively and publicize accurate and all-inclusive information on terrorism-related activities and threats.
Such reportage needs to avoid lurid details that in themselves cause public fear and terroror stories that tend to glorify terror. Much as our Code of Conduct speaks to this, actual action must come from the journalist and Editor.
Today’s journalists must know that beyond the perpetrators of terror, there exist hundreds of victims who require care, empathy, encouragement, protection and support to be able to pick up the pieces and continue to live without stigma, trauma, fear and hopelessness. By so doing, the media will be enhancing the rights of victims to a life of safety, health and all that goes with human dignity.
But as they do these, journalists must have access to information. They must be let free to practice journalism without state interference. In our current situation where Kenya is enduring a state of infamy due to the horror of Shakahola in Malindi, Kenya journalists have been shut out from the epicentre of activity and left by the State to rummage from wherever for information.
It is important for media to witness unfolding events at the Shakahola crime scene, to enable journalists to report accurately. Locking journalists, and only forcing them to rely on press briefings will fuel speculation and misinformation.
Kenya Editors’ Guild condemns without reservation the act to bar journalists from covering this event and views this action as a violation of Press Freedom. Indeed, these violations add up to sustained violence against journalists by police as they set out to carry out their public duty of informing the citizens of Kenya.
I end my remarks by calling on the authorities to remove the dark cloud hanging over the freedom we require to discharge our constitutional responsibilities. Freedom of the media, Freedom of Expression, and Access to Information are guaranteed in Articles 33 and 34 of the Constitution, The State must accord journalists the security, justice and fairness they require. Is this too much of a demand?
Zubeidah Kananu Koome, President of the Kenya Editors Guild (KEG) statement: Workshop on Safe Reporting of Violent Extremism and Terrorism in East Africa. MAY 02, 2023.
