Veteran journalist Maina Muiruri has been reappointed Chairperson of the Media Council of Kenya alongside three other board members.
Information, Communications and Digital Economy Cabinet Secretary William Kabogo reappointed Muiruri and board members Tabitha Mutemi, Tim Wanyonyi and Susan Karago through a Kenya Gazette Notice dated Friday, July 25, 2025.
They will serve for a second and final term of three years.
Kabogo also announced vacancies for four more positions, which will be filled competitively through a process to be conducted by a selection panel that he will appoint in the next one week.
The MCK had been without a board since October 2022 after former ICT CS Eliud Owalo failed to reappoint the four eligible members to a second term and declared all eight vacancies to be filled by a selection panel.
The board is made up of the Chairperson and eight members, with one seconded directly from the ICT Ministry.
At the end of the term, the CS is authorised by the Media Council Act to reappoint up to four members while subjecting four new ones to a competitive process. He may fail to reappoint any and declare eight vacancies as Owalo did.
Owalo’s process hit a hitch after former Attorney General Justin Muturi wrote an advisory to the CS notifying him of a gross conflict of interest, as some of the interviewees for the positions were also chairpersons of organisations conducting the recruitment.
The process ended in a court case that halted the interviews and dragged on for over two years until it was terminated about two months ago, paving the way for a restart of the process.
Kabogo, who is said to have been keen on ending the stalemate at the MCK, picked the four, who were understood to have met all the terms for reappointment after the end of their first term.
Muiruri and the previous board had led the MCK through a volatile phase during the Covid-19 period when the media industry was ravaged by debilitating economic effects caused by the pandemic.
The council presided over a rescue package to cushion grassroots media houses, especially rural-based radio stations, from collapse, distributing cash and kind relief provided by the government.
The Council also expanded into five regions, Mombasa, Kisumu, Nakuru, Meru and Eldoret and set up a project of starting press clubs in more major towns.
Muiruri, who holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and a Master's in International Relations, both from the University of Nairobi, worked his way through media ranks as a writer and editor in the Standard Group before he pioneered as Managing Editor of the People Daily, Kenya’s first free-distribution newspaper.
