Let journalists be free to carry out duties

The government should move with speed to investigate the killing of a journalist just days before World Press Freedom Day Sunday.

The killing of the Eldoret-based journalist has focused negative international attention on Kenya, putting it on the map of shame of countries in which it is not safe for journalists to carry out their work without fear of death and intimidation.

In the past two years, the relationship between the media and the government has been largely adversorial, with numerous attempts to claw back the gains made in securing press freedom and the public’s right to information through a series of laws and other extra-legal means of coercion despite the guarantees provided by the Constitution.

OPEN NATIONS

Press freedom, and the assurance that journalists can perform their role of informing the society and acting as watchdogs against State excesses, are hallmarks of free, open, progressive, and democratic nations.

Sadly, Kenya appears to be sliding into the ranks of nations that do not respect the rights of journalists as individuals and the freedom of the media as institutions. Only recently, police assaulted journalists on duty in Tana River.

Studies have demonstrated an unequivocal relationship between press freedom and democracy and reduced corruption in public institutions.

The more Kenya slides down the ranking of nations where journalists can work unharmed and unmolested, the greater the danger that the democratic gains Kenyans have made will be clawed back and the greater the risk that corrupt public officials will go unpunished. Indeed, a free media has been shown to lead to a higher quality of government.

Any assault on journalists and media institutions amounts to a direct blow against democracy and public interest.