•Last week, the CS gazetted a technical working group to manage election debates in the media. The seats in focus are governor, senator and woman reps.
•Sammy Muraya is to chair the team and coordinate technical collaboration between community and local media outlets in organising the debates.
Image: FILE
Media players have rejected the appointment of a team by ICT boss Joe Mucheru to oversee political debates in the run-up to the August 9 polls.
On Tuesday, Kenya Union of Journalists and Kenya Editors Guild said the decision amounted to interference.
They said his decision contravenes the values of transparency, public participation and inclusivity.
They said the action undermined the independence of the media establishments to determine their course of action.
“The process contemplated by the Cabinet Secretary instead runs parallel to what the media industry players have by themselves put in place to ensure coverage of the elections including debates by aspirants,” they said.
Last week, the CS gazetted a technical working group to manage election debates in the media. The seats in focus are governor, senator and woman reps.
Sammy Muraya is to chair the team and coordinate technical collaboration between community and local media outlets in organising the debates.
Other members include Kenya Manufacturers Association CEO Phylis Wakiaga who will be the vice chairperson, Radio Citizen's Vincent Ateya and NTV's Martin Maasai.
The Media Council of Kenya led by its CEO David Omwoyo will provide secretarial support. The body will subsist for six months.
However, the editors through president Churchill Otieno said the action by the CS is running counter to another arrangement it had set for the same purpose.
Otieno said the problem Mucheru seeks to solve was not his job, but a matter for practitioners.
The CS does not have the power to direct media houses on how to cover elections, including debate, he said in a statement.
KUJ’s Erick Oduor on Tuesday said setting up the technical working group in the manner and under the structures on which it is contemplated to operate is unconstitutional illegal and untenable.
“The functions, powers and obligations of the group are an encroachment into the programming and editorial matters of Media houses and usurpation of the mandate of other media sector players,” he said in a statement.
“The process is also parallel to the initiatives by other media sector players.”
The union said the inclusion of MCK in the task force as a secretariat conflicts with its normative and legal mandate as a regulator.
They said the process of setting up the team was opaque and non-consultative, hence failing a crucial constitutional test.
“This violates the principles of inclusion, transparency and accountability are directly put the Cabinet Secretary in a new production in media houses,” the media players said.
They want Mucheru to rescind the gazette notice and allow the necessary democratic institutions and the media to conduct their democratic responsibilities without apparent interference by the government.
Edited by Kiilu Damaris