Poll crisis in focus at pan-Africa conference

A robust debate on the role of journalists in fuelling or preventing conflicts dominated the last day of the Pan Africa Media Conference in Nairobi on Friday.

The media were responsible for raising the red flag when situations threatened to get out of hand and lead to conflict, delegates were told. “It is our job to spot and stop disasters,” said Nation Media Group editorial director Joseph Odindo, who gave a keynote address on media and conflict.

He admitted that the Kenyan media played a role in 2007 post-election violence, and said there were many signs that the country was sliding towards chaos, but the media did little to prevent it. Speaking on the events after the 2007 polls, Mr Odindo said the media should have raised the red flag when security forces appeared to take sides. The media, he said, ought to have pointed out the danger to the nation and dig up facts to expose the issue.

In a presentation widely acclaimed by conference delegates, he said failure to name communities involved in incitement or killings encouraged impunity.
It was also the duty of media to understand what was going on in rival media, such as inflammatory statements, and bring it out for discussion. Journalists further need to do everything possible to avoid escalating conflict when it starts.

Going back to events before the elections, Mr Odindo said there were signs of trouble and one such was the failure by President Kibaki to stick to the 1997 Inter-Parties Parliamentary Group agreement in appointing electoral commissioners as well as hate speech by some politicians and vernacular radio stations.

The inter-parties agreement required the now disbanded Electoral Commission of Kenya to draw its commissioners from parliamentary parties, according to each party’s strength to promote impartiality. It was the principle on which the Samuel Kivuitu led commission had been appointed to office in 1997.

“The media should have foreseen the danger and demanded broad agreement and acceptance of the electoral commission. A journalist is part of a story and should not just stand back and watch,” he said.

Former Nation Media Group’s editorial director Wangethi Mwangi said both the government and journalists suppressed information when the violence broke out. “It was not simple. Journalists were drawn into the fray emotionally and intellectually. In the newsrooms, we were having battles trying to decide whether what we were doing was fuelling the fire. The suppression was at government level and at newsroom level,” said Mr Mwangi, who was NMG editorial director at the time.

Moderator Joseph Warungu from BBC named Sudan, Nigeria and Uganda as the continent’s trouble spots. On press freedom, Mr Chissano said: “Our journalists did not agree on how to be regulated and failed to produce a draft law. The party and government drafted a law which the Press then discussed. The Press has absolute freedom,” the former president told delegates.

Ugandan Minister for Information Kabakumba Masiko said Uganda would soon enact a law to regulate media. “I want to assure everyone that we shall continue respecting Press freedom in Uganda,” she said. Tanzanian media proprietor Jenerali Ulimwengu spoke of his country’s media discomfort with the laws governing the industry. “We still have a law that allows a minister to declare a publication banned. That kind of law worries us,” Mr Ulimwengu said.

Panellists, including Machata Tsedu from South Africa National Editors Forum and Mr Shyaka Kanuma (chief editor of the Rwanda Focus) advocated media self-regulation. Mr Kanuma added that hate speech should be criminalised. Mr Warungu said journalism was not about fire-fighting but anticipating events.

The panellists discussed sectarian reporting as seen in Kenya in the 2008 post-election violence and Rwanda genocide and religious incitement in Nigeria. They also tackled what could be the early signs of conflict and the lessons the world has learnt over the last 20 years in dealing with hate speech and incitement by media.