Saturday, February 10, 2007

How the Referendum was Covered

One of the most disappointing aspects of the coverage of the referendum by both the print and the electronic media in Kenya was that most journalists seemed to be more concerned with the “Game of Strategy” rather than the “Substance” of the referendum. It was very much like the way they covered the 1979 general elections and like Prof. Marcel Rutten of University of Leiden, Netherlands, and I said at that time in our Chapter of the book Democracy in Kenya, most of them obviously found the “game” to be of greater interest to both editors and the readers because it concerned itself with the race in the referendum. Journalism scholars call this kind of interest in the coverage of political contests the “Game of Strategy” because, like in any other game, it has a winner as well as a loser. The exciting story of how the race was taking place and how the Orange group was struggling to take over the leadership from the Banana group was always of a great interest to Kenyan readers, viewers and listeners. People enjoy competition and they take chances in backing both winners and losers. Many journalism scholars have compared election competition, and a referendum is a form of this competition, with that of horse racing and the excitement of the two is more or less the same.

When journalists get carried away with the competition element of the referendum they tend to forget a much more important aspect of the process which concerns the ‘Issues’ involved. According to Dean E. Elger, Associate Professor of Political Science at Moorhead State University in Minnesota, 70 per cent of all the news of political contests especially during election time is about the “Game” rather than the “Issues”. The coverage of the November 2005 referendum in Kenya was more or less based on the “Game of Strategy” rather than the “Substance of the Referendum”. To examine what the coverage of the referendum was like, it is important to separate the two aspects and look at them in greater details:

The Game of Strategy

As pointed out earlier, journalists in Kenya tended to pay greater attention to the “Game of Strategy” rather than the “Substance” of the referendum because they seemed to look at two major aspects of the two groups: (a) their styles and (b) their images. They wrote long articles about the various styles adapted by the Orange group and Banana groups which varied from addressing public rallies to open violence.

When all this happened reporters covering the referendum were more or less only concerned with the strategy and logistics of winning and so all they wrote about was what Elger would call ‘Appearance and Hoopla’. In other words the reporters were only concerned about how much popularity the groups were gathering as they conducted their campaigns.

There were many examples to prove this point and the following demonstrate Kenyan journalists’ overzealous concern with appearance and hoopla promoting horse racing journalism and emphasizing competition which bordered on dangerous conflict: The Standard of September 12 had a splash headline saying “Voices of Combat” with a strap-line reading: “CONSTITUTION: Ministers intensify ‘yes’ and ‘No’ battle over review Bill as some accuse Raila of plan to oust Kibaki govt through referendum”. The story said: “Chants of ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ continued to reverberate across Kenya yesterday as leaders intensified their support or opposition to the proposed new constitution. Roads Minister Raila Odinga led the ‘No’ brigade to a rally in Malindi where it declared the war was won as Vice President Awori, who is holding brief for President Kibaki who is in the United States , took the battle for the ‘Yes’ to Central Kenya.” In that well-done and punchy 70-word intro words that suggest adversarial confrontation are deliberately used again and again and they are: brigade, war, battle ! An excellent example of hype and hoopla!

The Daily Nation of September 13 had a splash headline reading “Shots Fired as Kanu MPs Clash over Constitution”. The kicker said: “Serut punched and kicked after bribery claim” and the story read: “Shots were fired as tension over the proposed new Constitution erupted into violence at a funeral attended by former President Moi and rival Kanu MPs. There was chaos in the VIP enclosure when local MP John Serut was punched and kicked after trying to talk to MP William Ruto.” An excellent example depicting the style used by leaders in the referendum contest – typical “game of strategy” story.

The Independent of September 31 had a sensational headline reading: “Referendum Shock as…Raila, Uhuru hire Mungiki.” The story claimed: “According to well-placed sources, Mungiki is back in full force and enjoying the services of a senior politician in the Opposition. The onset of campaign for the Draft Constitution has provided a fertile ground for all these organised bands of rumble (sic) rousers as the campaign for YES and NO heats up. The violence that was witnessed in the No rally at Thika Stadium last week is a pointer of things to come as the No and YES protagonist (sic) intensify their campaign ahead of the November 21 referendum”. This was yet another “Game of Strategy” story based on very scanty facts though it led to the arrest of suspected Mungiki leaders.

In a story headed “ 2007 Battle Begins” The Kenyan Spectator of September 29 said: “ Behind the headline chaos touching the campaign rallies ahead of November 21 constitutional referendum are strategic boardroom manouvers (sic) meant to woo voters, in styles similar to a general election. The Kenya Spectator opens the curtains in both the Orange and Banana camps, for you to see the game of money, wit, charm, deception and partly high-tech mechanism going on in the recently unveiled secretariats.” Typical hype and hoopla!

In its issue of September 23-29 The Leader splash story “We will Topple Kibaki, Orengo Finally Reveals” says: It’s no longer secret. The Opposition to the Wako Draft Constitution by the naysayers is an excuse to take over power from President Mwai Kibaki. This bold declaration last week by former Ugenya MP, James Orengo is bound to raise temperatures further in the banana-orange imbroglio over the country’s future constitutional dispensation.” Yet another “Game of Strategy” story.

The Times of October 4’s splash headline read “Wako, Kalonzo Clash” with a strap-line saying “Ministers Trade ‘lies’ Charge in Public over Constitution.”. The story said: “Attorney General Amos Wako and Environment Minister Kalonzo Musyoka yesterday clashed in public over the draft constitution. Elsewhere three Ministers found themselves in trouble when they attempted to crusade for Yes vote at an international conference . In the first incident, Mr. Wako uncharacteristically locked horns in public with colleague Kalonzo and accused the later who is a leading light in the Orange team of spreading malicious propaganda on the contents of the proposed constitution ….Meanwhile Cabinet Minister Joseph Munyao, Martha Karua and Assistant Minister Beth Mugo were booed and urged to return to their seats when they allegedly digressed from the official matters and delved into the Orange and Banana debate. The trio were guests during the official ceremony to mark World’s Habitat Day. This year’s ceremony was hosted by the Mavoko municipal council in Athi River.” Game of Strategy!

According to the first Chairman of the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission, Prof. Yash Pal Ghai, a referendum is an important device for the expression of the consent of the people. But we ought to remind ourselves, he says, that referendums can be manipulated and have been used by dictators to bolster their regimes. In an article published by The Sunday Standard of October 23, he says the referendum offered a choice between ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ (but) did not give the people the right to make decisions. He warned that a referendum was not necessarily a constructive device in multi-ethnic societies as it tended towards ethnic polarisation. The most important question to ask following that remark by the professor is whether or not the journalists engaging in the game of strategy in reporting the referendum were themselves victims of ethnic polarisation.

Journalists from all the national and alternative media mentioned above may very well claim that all the stories I am talking about did indeed take place and they were only fulfilling their professional duties of complying with the news values of timeliness, human interest , proximity, consequences , impact and prominence. That may be so but it does not change the fact that they highlighted the Game of Strategy and paid very little attention to the Substance of the Referendum which unfortunately they chose to sweep under the carpet despite its important role in the entire exercise. So what really could they have done? What was the Substance of the Referendum anyway?

The Substance of the Referendum

Given the fact that the Kenyans voters who are regular newspaper readers and customary TV viewers or constant radio listeners are among the elite in our society, the coverage of the referendum became more demanding than the provision of stories based on mere “Games of Strategy”. These were the people who wanted to know from the media a little bit more of the analysis of the various interpretation of the content of the proposed constitution.

Journalists who were interested in the substance of the referendum became serious writers who provided their readers with what professionals call ‘backgrounders’, news analysis and commentaries about new proposals compared with what is contained in the current constitution. The ‘race horse’ drama of who was winning the referendum and who was losing was brought about in their reports in the form of letting the people know what they stood to gain or lose by making whatever choice they made. This kind of analytical coverage of the referendum tended to be the exception rather than the rule and was mainly confined in a handful of the up market media of the Kenyan society such as The East African and The Daily Nation and to a lesser extent The Standard.

Two journalists were outstanding in their presentation of the substance of the referendum to the public – Louis Otieno of KTN and Rose Kamotho when she chaired the first great debate covered live by almost all the radio and TV stations in the country. Ms Kamotho as the chairperson of the debate was tough and tried her best to make the participants dwell on real issues rather than hype and hoopla. For this she was seriously attacked by David Ochami , a senior staff writer of Sunday Time who commented : “What had been anticipated and marketed as Kenya’s biggest debate easily degenerated into an anticlimax thanks to the moderator’s recklessness and bias. Rose Kamotho achieved what she and the Media Owners’ Association had planned beforehand i.e. to strike a blow for the banana campaign. As they celebrated their genius journalism was left the poorer and the silent majority of journalists the shamed.” Well presented argument but based on what evidence? The majority of readers’ views’ and listeners’ reaction called for more debates based on facts contained in the new proposals but obviously Ochami did not think so. Could he also be a victim of ethnic polarisation? The report of the debate was fully covered by the Daily Nation and a short story about it appeared in The Standard of October 19. Whether the debate and the Daily Nation story helped the voters make up their minds the result clearly tell whether or not Ochami accepts them.

Over a million Kenyans saw Ms. Kamotho stopping Prof. Anyang Nyongo from attacking Citizen Radio and urged him to be relevant and discuss the content of the proposed constitution. During the debate Raphael Tuju challenged his opponent to point out differences in the content of the Boma’s Draft and the proposed draft as far as land issues and Bill of Rights were concerned. The Orange team were up in arms arguing that the Boma’s draft was not the subject of the debate. Yet as soon as they left the studio they told various public rallies that they backed the Boma’s draft. Why couldn’t journalists pin them down to declare their real stand?

What was most noticeable among Kenyan journalists was their preference to concentrate on issues concerning disagreements among the leaders so that the stories they wrote tended to be rather sensational. This was in keeping with the journalists’ desire to highlight issues concerning conflict as human-interest stories. Another aspect of concern for reporters interested in the substance of elections was the two groups’ traits and record. In a minority of cases serious journalists reviewed all the candidates’ past positive and negative contribution to the society and predicted what was likely to happen when the people either rejected or accepted the proposed constitution.

This kind of analysis was not done adequately in the referendum yet it was clear if used effectively it could rid Kenya of the culture of blindly agreeing with leaders whose only qualification was the tribe they belonged to or the support they got from bigger godfathers. It was the kind of journalism that would have made people take a stand based on informed position rather than simply agreeing with leaders because they came from the same tribe or even clan. The notion that journalists would always highlight human interest issues caused by odd incidents was proved right during the campaign for both Orange and Banana groups when even the most serious among them pegged their otherwise unprejudiced analysis to petty incidents of conflict, adventure and self interest.

This meant no matter how much journalists wanted to dwell with the “Substance of the Referendum”, the factors and orientations of news production pushed them to see serious interpretation of the new proposal and comparison with the current constitution to quickly losing their ‘newsworthiness’ whereas campaign missteps and the bizarre events of the whole process were ‘fresh occurrences’ which adequately answered the journalist news value requirement of timeliness. Unfortunately once leaders made known their position on an issue, further statements concerning that issue declined in news value sense. Therefore journalists covering the referendum had to have a good nose for news to produce good copy after sitting through innumerable repetitions of speeches by the same people talking about the same issues in different parts of constituencies.

One area that totally failed in Kenyan journalism in so far as the coverage of the referendum was concerned was the little attempt made by the practitioners to get exclusive stories from leaders from the two groups on significant interpretation of specific parts of the new proposal and what is contained in the current constitution. That would have led to real assistance to the voters by laying bare at least two aspects of the two groups:

1. Whether they had adequate knowledge about the matters highlighted in the new proposal compared with the current constitution.

2. Whether their stand on such important issues as the country’s constitution were actually reasonable and not mere tactic to win peoples’ support.

On Kenyatta Day President Kibaki tried hard to dwell on the substance of the proposed constitution by explain to voters about the consequences of voting No. According to The Standard of the next day, October 21, the President said: “On November 21, we shall all be participating in a historic referendum to decide whether we adopt the proposed constitution or remain with the current Constitution.” The Standard report continued: “But the Orange team that is asking Kenyans to vote ‘No’ on the proposed Constitution reacted angrily to this assertion and accused the Government of hoodwinking Kenyans. In a statement faxed from its secretariat, the No campaign team said the referendum was not about the current or the proposed constitution. ‘It is about determining whether the proposed constitution is good for the country or not. The choice is between the flawed Wako Draft and the new, better constitution agreed through a consultative process that is acceptable to the majority of Kenyans”. So who was right? The President or the Orange secretariat? The Standard didn’t say.

The answer was probably to be found in the Daily Nation of September 6, a day after the Electoral Commission Chairman; Samuel Kivuitu launched the Orange and Banana teams. According to the splash story titled “D-day for Historic Constitution Vote” the paper said: If the Yes voters win, it will pave the way for the new constitution and will become the third since independence 42 years ago. But if the No voters triumph, Kenya will keep the current constitution that has governed the nation for the same period and has been vilified for vesting too much power in the Presidency.” At that time there was no reaction from the Orange group.

According to one great editor, C.P. Scott, comment is free but facts are sacred and that is the one aspect of Kenyan journalism where the ethical importance of Impartiality was be put to test during the coverage of the referendum .These famous words by Scott are at times forgotten by Kenyan journalists when they ignore the vital question of separation of news from comment, or the religious avoidance of what in current usage is termed tendentiousness. Americans simply call it editorializing. Though Scott’s words have been classic, they tend to lose much of their force if divorced, as they commonly are, from their context.
What C. P. Scott said was: “The newspaper is of necessity something of a monopoly, and its first duty is to shun the temptations of monopoly. Its primary office is not the gathering of news .At the peril of its soul it must see that the supply is not tainted .Neither in what it gives nor in what it does not give, nor in the mode of presentation, must the unclouded face of truth suffer wrong. Comment is free, facts are sacred. Propaganda, so called, by this means is hateful. The voice of opponents no less than of friends has a right to be heard. Comment is also justly subject to a self imposed restraint. It is well to be frank; it is even better to be fair.” According to yet another journalism scholar, Wilson Harris, the highest canons of journalism could find no better definition than that.
Yet even Harris admits that this is not quite all the story. He says the question how far it is the function of the Press to give the public what the public wants is still worth asking. Here, of course the element of competition enters in. It is convenient to speak generally of the Press, but what is meant in fact is a number of individual newspapers, each of them intend on increasing its circulation at the expense of the others .In the campaign the odds are all in the a paper that gives its readers what its readers want, as against a rival who gives them what it thinks they ought to have.
Despite the journalistic rules of impartiality, Kenyan readers have a special liking for editorialized presentation of news the way The Leader kept doing throughout the campaign period. Many of its front page stories presented to the people of Kenya as hard news stories were in actual fact commentaries. For example the story published on October 14-20 issue with a heading saying “Kibaki’s Patience Now Makes Raila Reckless” went ahead and pretended to give Kenyan news which in fact was opinion: “There is no doubt that Raila Odinga is the leader against the adoption of the Wako Draft, mainly because the proposed document does not contain a powerful executive Prime Minister, a position which is believed to have been custom-created for him by the Bomas conclave through his deft scheming.” Excellent editorial sadly presented to the people as hard news story.
In his book Press Bias and Politics Jim A. Kuypers discusses how media frame controversial issues. Analysing the book, Amazon.com says it charts the effects the printed press – and by extension, broadcast media – have upon messages of political and social leaders when they discuss controversial issues.

After examining 700 American press reports Kuypers concludes that media bias hurts the democratic process in general by ignoring non-mainstream left positions and vilifying many moderates and vast majority of right leaning positions. If similar studies were conducted in Kenya some form of bias in the Kenyan media will also be discovered. On October 17, 2005, for example, The Standard had a front page splash story with a heading saying “Kibaki Plans New Districts for Nakuru as Race Hots Up”.

That headline had a strap-line on top saying “Orange Sweeps Through Coast, Western and Predicts Victory while…” The ‘tone” of the entire story gave the impression that President Kibaki was planning to create new districts in Nakuru in order to win votes to support the proposed constitution in a referendum which was about to take place. The story below the headline said “ President Kibaki’s announcement is likely to be seen by the orange (No) platform as yet another campaign freebie planned by the government ahead of the November 21st referendum on the proposed new constitution.” On the back page of the Daily Nation of the same date the same story appeared with a very different tone. Its headline said “State To Consider District Plea.” Its kicker said “Kibaki agrees with MPs’ Call That Nakuru deserves Two New Units.” The story said: President Kibaki yesterday said the Government would consider proposals to create two new districts in Nakuru.”

The slant in the Daily Nation story was that the President was reacting to the demands of the people. It was a pro-Kibaki “tone”. The “tone” of The Standard was that the President was bribing people to support the new Constitution. It was an anti-Kibaki slant.

May be the most sophisticated coverage of the referendum came in the picture on October 22 when Public Opinion Journalism dominated all the front pages of both national and alternative media. Conducted by the respected Steadman Group the report made journalist write hybrid stories mixing the game of strategy and the substance of the referendum. From the report came out stories that indicated that Mwai Kibaki was still the most popular politician in the country and his popularity was steadily going up. Raila, the leader of the Orange team was fourth in line after Uhuru Kenyatta and Kalonzo Musioka.

The results also indicated that the current constitution was most unpopular with only 9 per cent of the voters backing it yet only ten per cent of Kenyans had attended civic education which would have made them realize backing the Orange camp was backing the hated constitution. The media had a lesson to learn from the polls because it revealed to them that 13 per cent of the people thought they had been very unfair in reporting the referendum and 30 per cent more thought they were “somewhat unfair”.

Public Opinion Journalism was introduced in Kenya by the Daily Nation on March 24 1999 when I predicted in May of that year in Expression Today’s Media Review that public opinion journalism “will become very popular in every aspect of the media. They will soon use opinion polls as a source of news. Soon it will dominate political reporting, with very major news organizations conducting their own polls, with results – true or false – reaching the people through hard news headlines.” What worried me at that time and still worries me now is the likely eventuality of journalists and pollsters joining hands in establishing their own agenda by conducting hypothetical polls simply by asking what journalism scholars call “what if” questions. As a mater of fact, “what if” journalism is an aspect of the profession which makes many defenders of the truth very wary of journalism, based on opinion palls.

Needless to say, I argued in 1999, polls result very much depend on the questions asked and the manner in which those questions are framed. Serious opinion journalism will be determined only by understanding the wording of the questions posed before readers , listeners and viewers can take seriously public conclusions arrived at after opinion polls . My misgivings about public opinion polls as a source of news notwithstanding, Kenyans will soon learn to accept the fact that the state of mind of a large population will inevitably influence major events in this country. What needs to be accepted at this early stage of connecting polls with authentic source of news, I said then, is the fact that the public state of mind could be artificially created by the mass media.

Used properly, I still maintain, public opinion journalism can enhance freedom of expression. Unfortunately that freedom of expression was threatened at the peak of the campaign when the Minister for Internal Security, John Michuki threatened to shut down Family TV for hosting Prof. Anyang Nyongo who backed the Orange team. According to The Standard of October 24 the Minstre warned the station by saying: “Let them look at the frequencies again and know that they belong to the Government. It will take them away if they continue to abuse the privilege.” Pathetic!

1 comment:

Hatari said...

I have benefited so much as a journalist from your objective and inspiring blog. I will consult it everyday. Please keep blogging on the media and the Kenyan politics.

Clifford Derrick.