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Dr. Levi Obonyo, (Above) chair of Media Council of Kenya and the head of communication department, Daystar University, Nairobi, Kenya: He caught the writing bug from Ngugi wa Thiong'o (Top).
He “blames” writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o for his love for writing.
That is Dr. Levi Obonyo, the current chair of the Media Council of Kenya and the head of communication department at Daystar University in Nairobi.
He traces his entry into the world of media and communication to his time in high in Western Kenya when he found that the only thing he could do was read novels since he could speak the local language while in school. “I read nearly all of the novels in the African Writers Series written by authors from different parts of Africa,” he says.
Up to this day, he vividly remembers characters and scenes in many of the books written by Ngugi wa Thiong’o, one of his favourite authors and who had a great impression on him and made him develop the desire for writing at an early age.
Dr. Obonyo is not new to the field of communication. He has more than 20 year’s involvement in the field of communication. He has taught communication courses both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels and supervises student’s theses and dissertations. He is also an external examiner in several universities in the East African region.
He believes that media training in the country compares very well with world standards considering that many of the graduates of local universities have gone ahead to work in international media organizations.
“Kenyan journalists are among the best in the world,” he says.
He mentions this is reflected in the minimum entry level for workers in many media houses in the country, a university degree, and he says that this is a measure of the high caliber of personnel being churned out by institutions of higher learning in the country.
“We can easily compare with South Africa,” he adds.
Dr. Obonyo has been a communication lecturer in Daystar University for most of his life. He joined the university, went out of the country for a number of years and eventually came back to head the communication department in 2006 after earning a doctorate in Mass Communication. He is among a few people holding a doctorate in communication in the country today.
As an expert in the field of training of media practitioners in the country, he says that the private universities are playing a major role in training of journalists since they have the equipment and necessary facilities because of the finances at their disposal, unlike the public universities. He is of the view that the government needs to allocate more funds to public universities to enable them upgrade their facilities and help improve on delivery of quality training.
With the current reforms taking place in different sectors of our country, Dr. Obonyo has found found himself playing a part in the process of selecting the candidates to fill the position of members for the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission. He was a member of the panel vetting the candidates to the body.
The nomination of the candidates by the panel has so far elicited a lot of controversy, with the three nominees yet to be approved by parliament after being nominated by the president and the prime minister.
While he says he believes in the freedom of media and expression, he thinks that in future television cameras should not be allowed to roll while the interviews are going on, since they distort interviews. “Those who play to the camera are likely to win. Kenyans may end up with the best actors and not the best candidates!”
In answering the question whether print media will die soon because of the new trends in media, his answer is an emphatic “NO!” “Print will not die but it is the mode of delivery that will change.” His advice to training institutions and journalists is that they should focus more on developing case studies, investigative journalism and convergence in order to be relevant in the market.
Even with the emergence of citizen journalism, Dr. Obonyo still believes that mainstream journalism is there to stay since this is where news is “synthesized and distilled” before it reaches the consumers.
All the same, he encourages citizen journalism because it enhances one of the freedoms that are enshrined in our constitution.
The Media Council, of which he is the current chair, has been accused by some of not doing enough to regulate the media, especially in the wake of liberalization of the media, which has seen an increase in FM stations, which have been accused of airing offensive messages.
He defends the council by saying that the council is doing a lot which the public is not aware of. He says that the council’s complaints commission is currently handling close to 30 complaints lodged by different parties. In its latest ruling, the complaints commission has ordered the Kenya Television Network to apologise to the Kenya Revenue Authority for a story aired in 2009 which alleged that its officers were corrupt. The council found that the story was erroneous and defamatory.
The Media Council of Kenya is an independent national institution that was established by the Media Act in 2007 to lead in the regulation of media and in the conduct and discipline of journalists. Its mission is to safeguard media freedom, enhance professionalism and arbitrate media disputes.
But he admits that the council faces various challenges in executing its mandate, the major being many challenges raised by accused organisations or individuals lawyers, which elongates the process of adjudicating the complaints raised by members of the public.
Furthermore, he says that the rules of natural justice demand that every accused person or organization should be given the right of reply and the right of a fair trial. “All these factors end up delaying the process of listening to complaints and making a fair judgement,” he adds.
In the light of the reforms taking place in the country currently, Dr. Obonyo says that the media too needs to reform. “I fear when I see how the news window is decreasing today, where the 60/40 rule is not being taken into account by media.” The rule says that media should carry 60 percent news content and 40 percent commercials.
But Dr. Obonyo says that some media houses are violating this rule. “Don’t the public deserve more news content?” he asks.
Another area he mentions where the media needs to reform is in the area of representation of the male and female gender in the leadership of media houses, and representation of different communities in media houses. He laments that the men dominate all the senior positions in most media houses in the country. “The media needs to do something about this,” he opines.
“As we go to the elections in 2012, it is critical that the media should consider how the representation of different communities in the media houses is likely to impact the coverage and reportage during election time,” he says.
Dr. Obonyo has previously lectured at Drexel University, Eastern University and the University of Sciences all in the USA. He is also a member of the International Communication Association (ICA), the National Communication Association (NCA), and the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), among others.
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