Stop drums of war in reporting fate of Kenyans living in China

Headlines played a major role in starting the Spanish-American War in 1898.

Three years earlier, Cubans had revolted against Spanish colonial rule. Spain responded by herding the Cubans into horrendous concentration camps to defeat the uprising.

The American media, notably New York World and New York Journal, graphically portrayed to the American public the ruthlessness of Spanish rule.

The newspapers used big front-page sensational headlines to whip up popular support for American intervention. It was during this time that the term “yellow journalism” was coined to describe a type of journalism that uses exaggerated facts and shocking headlines to scare people or advocate a cause.

When I read the big bold-format headline “Kenyans in China: Rescue us from hell” on the front page of the last Saturday Nation, I thought of yellow journalism.

My thoughts were strengthened by the teaser that accompanied the four-deck headline: “We gave them our masks, and now Chinese radicals have turned against our compatriots.”

RACISM

Ridiculous as it may seem, I asked myself: is the Nation calling for war against China? But when I read the text of the story, which appeared on page 6, the war drums on page one had disappeared.

It was just a straightforward account. The “we-gave-them-our-masks” mantra on page one was now not a war cry but an explanatory whimper.

No doubt, Africans living in China have been mistreated in a manner that suggests racism and discrimination. Even China admits some of the local authorities may have acted too enthusiastically in trying to avoid a resurgence of the coronavirus. But it says it doesn’t practise discrimination or racism.

It further points out that it’s harmful to “sensationalise isolated incidents or misunderstanding caused by insufficient communication”. To misrepresent this as “tensions between nations and races is dangerous”, it says.

The meaning of this Chinese statement became clear when I saw Kenyans on social media, taking a cue from the Nation headline, bashing China.

NMG POLICY

Influential Sunday Nation columnist Makau Mutua led the crusade. On April 10, a day before the Saturday Nation came out, Prof Mutua tweeted that the Chinese are conducting ethnic cleansing of Kenyans.

“The principle of reciprocity in international law allows Kenya to retaliate by expelling some Chinese citizens from Kenya,” wrote the scholar.

I looked up the NMG editorial policy on reporting conflicts, including interstate ones.

The policy requires that facts in a news report be presented with due caution, balance and restraint. They should also be presented in a manner that is conducive to the creation of an atmosphere congenial to reconciliation.

The reporting should be “authoritative without being didactic” and headlines not be “sensationally provocative”.

Further, the policy says, the news content should be presented in a “disciplined, sober, consistent and non-sensationalist format”. It should not be written in a manner likely to inflame passions, aggravate tension or accentuate the strained relations between the parties.

We should not to resort to any form of “yellow journalism” in reporting the Sino-Kenyan controversy.

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