President Uhuru Kenyatta receives the most coverage across all media platforms in the country, a new report shows.
However, when it comes to the coverage of national politics, Ruto leads at 27.88 per cent followed by Uhuru at 20.76 per cent and Raila at 18.04 per cent.
"The coverage around these personalities has been on 2022 politics and the handshake," the report notes.
According to the report by TIFA and Reelforge, Uhuru was the most mentioned personality in the news at 20 per cent between October 2018 and June 2019.
He is followed by Deputy President William Ruto at 13 per cent and opposition leader Raila Odinga at 8 per cent.
Fred Matiangi (Interior) and Amina Mohamed (Sports) are the two cabinet secretaries with the highest coverage while Mike Sonko leads among the Governors.
Despite the perception that Kenyan media is obsessed with politics and politicians, the report also shows that crime is the most covered topic.
On crime, Matiang’i got the highest coverage due to his mandate as the Interior CS which covers security matters. His mentions focused on the Dusit Dusit Terror Attack and fake gold scam.
Uhuru was also mentioned a lot under crime with the focus being on his remarks around the Dusit terror attack and the charging of people who had impersonated him.
The report shows that crime reporting was dominated by stories such as the murders of Sharon Otieno, Monica Kimani, Caroline Mwatha and Ivy Wangeci.
"The murder of the human rights activist Caroline Mwatha received 7.91% of the total mentions," the report notes.
Education came second with top stories focusing on the national examinations, the new curriculum, the threats of the teachers strike and form one student's placement.
The media has also extensively reported on corruption with a critical focus on graft within national and county governments.
Nairobi governor Mike Sonko had the highest coverage in the news at 28 per cent followed by both Ferdinand Waititu at 14 per cent and Okoth Obado at 11 per cent.
Wycliffe Oparanya, the Chairman of the Council of Governor’s and Alfred Mutua both have seven per cent news coverage.
