Three weeks to the March 4, 2013, general election, a managing editor of a mainstream media house received an M-Pesa message announcing the receipt of Sh10,000. Because the cash came from a mobile money agent, the sender was not immediately known to the recipient.
The next message to the editor was, “Kama ni nzuri ni nzuri (If it is from a good source it is good).” The message was from a former senior editor who had left the media house two years earlier to work for a presidential aspirant. The former editor knew, and still knows, the right buttons to push to get favourable coverage. He knows the decision chain in a conventional newsroom.
The recipient claimed he did not know why someone would send him money. But his cynical peers knew. He promised to return it, but never confirmed if he ever did.
The cynics knew why campaign money was in peak circulation among journalists. They also knew when steak-holders started to grease the hands of newsroom decision-makers. They had known by then that, where seven or nine editors were gathered for news judgement, five or six were sure to have been compromised. They knew that whenever a director joined the senior editorial team at a meeting, there was always a subtext.
The subtext was always known, in advance, to three-quarters of the conferencing editors. They knew news judgement alone was not all that mattered. They knew the blistering tar of compromise had replaced good judgement and the public interest.
The editor had a clue what the money was for, but feigned ignorance. He did not want to appear to be on the take like the rest of the newsroom gang he was supervising. The rot was much deeper; the effect of ‘envelopmental journalism’ far-reaching. The day’s headline was favourable to the campaign, hence a good turn deserved another. By the Sh10,000, the campaign team was scratching the back of the one responsible for the ‘good’ headline.
The money came from the campaign secretariat of a presidential candidate. It was, however, not clear whether this was the first time the managing editor was receiving money from this particular team. But it was the first time he was making a public disclosure of such receipt.
The other question was, if the campaign team could compromise a senior editor, how far was it willing to go with lower-cadre editorial staff? The other question was, how high was the compromise?
Whatever you read in the newspapers, listen to on radio or watch on the TV news may not always be an accurate and fair account of reality. There are compromises, especially around divisive issues, such as partisan contests.
The dominant excuse during the countdown to the 2013 elections was that journalists needed to be “responsible” and willing to take guidance to avoid the mistakes of omission and commission of 2007. The claim then was that ‘inflammatory’ reporting helped to fuel the 2007-08 post-election violence.
‘Responsible’ reporting in 2013 consisted of absolute silence on issues around the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission. The silence was loud. Media houses did not have the courage to tell the public electronic voter devices had failed the pre-test. Reporting that would sow doubts around the supervisor of elections. Such doubts, it was claimed, would ‘agitate’ a public that was yet to recover from the effects of electoral violence of five years earlier.
Ignorance was bliss, even though billions in public money was invested in the process. ‘Peace journalism’ was in vogue to avoid a repeat of the PEV. The rush to compromise public perception is on again; it’s the season of political correctness.
Opinion pollsters are arousing suspicion as are other public watchdogs. The stakes may be high for the power clique, but they should always know the national interest is more important than the fears of a minority.