The Nation is biased towards Kibaki

At face value, the Nation Newspaper seems to be involved in objective political news reporting. But a closer scrutiny of the paper in terms of language use, space given to articles, frequency of coverage of certain politicians and the views that are expressed, reveals a totally different picture. There is a subtle attempt to elevate the person of President Kibaki and by extension the political wing of the government he represents. A look at political events in recent days locally can reveal what the paper is up to. The latest event that has triggered quite a lot of debate in the country is the recent appointment of certain individuals to offices created by the new Kenyan constitution. The president made the appointments to the offices of the Chief Justice, the Attorney General, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Controller of Budget. The Prime Minister denounced the list saying that there were no adequate consultations between the two of them. The Nation, in one editorial piece on 15th February apportions blame to both the principals. This is not right when you consider the reasons that were given by the Vice-President and the President why the appointments had to be made “in a rush”. The reason was that the names had to be announced before the President left for the African Union meeting in Addis Ababa last month. This was to help him convince the other leaders that Kenya was on the path of establishing credible judicial institutions to help prosecute perpetrators of post-election violence. The question is, is the president working for Kenyans or for the foreigners that he wanted to impress at the AU summit? Why was there a hurry, even after the Prime Minister, who was also in Ethiopia, had asked that the consultations continue after he comes back? This is the action that the Nation needs to question but not apportion blame to the two principals equally. Surely, one of them was to blame. Having been in politics for all these years, the president shouldn’t have gotten tired before the consulations were over! Another disturbing event that has happened recently was the reported visit to the office of the president by a delegation of MPs from the Rift Valley, Coast and Western provinces, to lobby for jobs for their kith and kin. The Nation chose to hide the story of the visit by the Western leaders in the inside pages of the newspaper, yet these visits are undermining the very constitution that the President is supposed to uphold. They needed to be given more space and prominence than the space and placement given by the nation. Why does the Nation want to hide a story with such ramifications in its inside pages? In the corporate world, people who are looking for employment are not supposed to canvass. Why should these MPs visit the president and canvass for jobs for their cronies and relatives? Where will people from minority tribes like me get jobs since we have no one to canvass for us? I would have expected the Nation to mention and castigate such visits but they chose not to. Why, no one can tell! The Nation is being selective in its criticism of the president. If you have lived in this country and know the way the papers used to criticize former President Moi for two decades, then you would understand what I am talking about. Look at the issue of Francis Muthaura and Uhuru Kenyatta, who have been mentioned adversely in relation to the post-election violence that was witnessed in 2007-2008 in Kenya. How does the president convince us that these people will not use their influence in government to interfere with evidence and witnesses, evidence which may implicate them in the said criminal activities? How can we trust them to make decisions which are likely to affect them, while remaining objective? Theirs is a conflict of interest and the Nation needs to point that out and ask that they be relieved of their duties until such time when they will be cleared by a competent court of law, of which the International Criminal Court is one. The Nation has chosen to look the other way and allow such actions to pass, perhaps conveniently. We may need to ask who owns the Nation and who calls the shots in the media house. In its attempt to convince the United Nations Security Council to defer the cases facing 6 Kenyans in the Hague, the president’s wing of the government is said to have produced a video which depicts the Prime Minister as the main perpetrator of violence in 2007-2008. The Nation, and other media in Kenya, has conveniently chosen to ignore this and not attempt to get a copy of the video to show Kenyans what is being used to convince Africa to support Kenya in its ill-advised attemts. If indeed the President has good intentions, why is it that the video is only being shown to foreigners without Kenyans being given a chance to watch and make their own informed judgement? Why is the Nation not in a hurry to get the tapes and play them in Kenya. Why run to Sudan and Uganda to cover elections while you ignore news events that will have direct impact on Kenyans? They need to remember that many of the post-election violence victims are still living in Internally Displaced Peoples camps. Space cannot allow to point out all the misgivings I have against the Nation. The media, and particularly the Nation, is an accomplice in all these devious schemes by the President. By choosing to keep quiet, to report selectively or to report but without questioning the actions of the President, the Nation has proved that its critics have always been right. This is just a repeat of what we saw them doing before the 2007 elections. And they stand accused for their partisanship which does not conform to journalistic principles and ethics!