The headline on the Star newspaper on Wednesday, ‘Matiang’i goes to war with DP Ruto’, was misleading and cannot go unchallenged. The sustained negative publicity about the DP by the Star newspaper is unfair.
The paper has on several occasions run outrageous banner headlines about Ruto, including ‘Ruto gives Sh17 million in two months’, ‘Ruto loses grip of Rift Valley’, ‘Ruto builds mansion worth billions of shillings’, to name but a few, to tarnish his image.
It was particularly unprofessional of the newspaper, in its latest headline, to narrowly interpret the statement by Interior CS Fred Matiang’i that police uniforms would not be imported to mean that there are differences between him and Ruto. As if the DP has been importing police uniforms from abroad.
This, in my opinion, is untrue, misleading and against journalistic ethics of reporting. The move can be viewed as a wider scheme by the newspaper to portray the DP as someone who interferes with procurement process, thus promoting corruption, which is very wrong.
The newspaper reported that a vicious fight between the DP and Matiang’i exploded into the open on Tuesday, as if the two were there together engaging each other in a war of words before the public.
By claiming that an intelligence source told the newspaper that a governor from Nyanza, known to work with the DP, ferried people from various parts to one of the venues where the President was to address the people with the intention of heckling Matiang’i without giving facts is utter nonsense and shows that our journalistic skills are indeed wanting.
Further claims by the newspaper that the DP and Matiang’i engaged in a cold war when the President visited Kisumu shows that there is no difference between this newspaper and the gutter press.
The newspaper wants to portray the DP as not supporting the crusade against corruption. But the manner in which the paper has gone about claiming that the DP is interfering with the procurement of police uniforms has proved to be, at best, misleading and missing facts.
The interpretation by the newspaper is utterly untrue and misleading on issues pertaining to the Deputy President’s way of doing things. The headline is likely to create fear and animosity among peaceful Kenyans, considering the mounting political temperatures as the country gears towards the 2022 General Election.
The country needs peace and tranquility to attain development as advocated by all leaders across the political divide and it’s unfair for the Star to wage a sustained war against the DP’s activities of DP Ruto.
But it seems such headlines by such a newspaper about certain leaders are no longer an issue of professionalism but a flat form to tarnish their images. Recent headlines by the newspaper show that the paper has declared war on the Deputy President’s leadership.
Journalistic ethics dictates that any newspaper is obligated to be fair and objective in its reporting. But the Star newspaper has demonstrated in what it has published about Ruto in the recent past that it is pursuing a personal vendetta against the DP.
The manner in which the paper arrived at a decision to run the latest headline is a clear indication that it decided to go out of the journalistic way to engage in a smear campaign to tarnish the DP’s image. This may suggest that some top managers of the paper are surrogates of certain politicians, who are nothing more than a team whose aim is to tarnish the image of certain individuals while propagating the politics of certain individuals — they are focused in what they are doing.
Ruto’s opponents and the management of the Star newspaper need to take a wider perspective of the DP’s activities instead of narrowing themselves as a weapon to wage unsustainable political attacks against him.
It could have been likewise fair for the newspaper to be factual and report objectively on the DP’s development activities and engage in constructive criticism instead of engaging in a smear campaign to tarnish his image. It is therefore paramount that journalists are impartial, fair and objective in their reporting to win the trust of readers and the public.
Kaino works for the DP's press office