The place of academic competence in political analysis on local media

Last week, I was involved in a debate on social media with Citizen TV’s Breakfast Show presenter David Makali on the relationship between political analysis and academic competence.

I would like to share this with readers. The debate was provoked by Mr Makali’s morning show where he hosted two guests, one a political science colleague at the University of Nairobi and another, a head of some Institute in Nairobi.

Many unsuspecting Kenyans might not have noticed the rate at which guests posture on television. This is especially the case for guests who acquire professorial or doctoral titles in the media that are not conferred by any recognised university.

I drew Mr Makali’s attention to this growing anomaly and implied that anyone who is capable of assuming a title he/she never earned, and does not take care to alert the anchors about this, is also capable of selling mediocre political commentary as competent academic analysis.

More often than not, this is done with an eye to something other than objective analysis. Such ‘experts’ use the media and the anchors as tools in their search for recognition. One such fellow projected himself as holding a doctorate and was appointed ambassador last year. If a politician did this, I would not be too worried because we have socialised our politicians to acquire titles at will. Some have ‘earned’ undergraduate degrees after less than a third of the time required to be in undergraduate class.

STRIKING A BALANCE

The problem is that this disease is quickly spreading to academics, thereby prompting the question: how does a journalist handle a situation where there are obvious conflicts between the views of an invited ‘expert’ and his personal desire for political recognition? For Makali, ‘it is not the media’s business to question people’s titles if they ask to be referred to as so and so.’

He argues that ‘it is even discourteous’ to ask if indeed the people on show earned the title they purport to have. I look forward to the day when I will be on Mr Makali’s show as Engineer Murunga!

Mr Makali argues that ‘political analysis should not be equated with academic competence’ because ‘quite often analysts are not people who are academically suited but rather have proximity to the situations their opinions are sought or represent alternative thinking.’ I agree with Makali up to some point but I wonder if he has reflected on the grave implications of his argument for public perception of television talk shows.

I do not think that our key worry should be whether political analysis can be equated with academic competence. Rather we should ask whether political analysis assumes the quality of academic competence precisely because those who provide it hold or pretend to hold a title that suggests academic competence.

ACADEMIC COMPETENCE

It is a fact that the title Professor confers a quality of academic competence. The academic world has rules that qualify people for professorial titles. So if we revise Mr Makali’s formulation, the simple act of inviting someone to the studio has consequences. Viewers get swayed by a professor on a television show mainly because the title they carry embeds within it an assumed quality of academic competence.

My point is that journalistic curiosity must drive anchors to confirm if a guest merits the title they want on air. This is especially the case where a guest actively encourages reference to those unearned titles.

We all know what is required for one to be professor and it is careless for a journalist to present someone on air with a title when he/she has not cared to find out the true qualification of that panellist. In my view, this is why we are constantly being treated to mediocre political commendatory that flouts all the rules of serious learning and we wonder why Kenyans have little or no respect for academic competence in political analysis.

Godwin Murunga is Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Development Studies, University of Nairobi. [email protected]