I too, feel that this is overreaction and misrepresentation by the media. How many of the very vocal media personalities who appeared protesting have even read the proposed legislation? If they did, they would see that the powers granted are only applicable during a state of emergency. Other laws set out the process and conditions by which a state of emergency can be called.
Our experiences with the post-election crisis this year exposed how partisan and instrumental media can be to fuel discontent and in many cases, media related information was used to take lives.
Have the more responsible media houses forgotten so quickly the regret and guilt they expressed, when they started crying out for peace - after they realised how seriously wrong their transmissions were taken by the public?
It is true that when Govt invited stakeholders to make representations regarding the bill, the media houses that bothered to send personnel sent only very junior officials - there's no knowing what kind of feedback/representations these underlings took back to their bosses.
How many media houses sent representations to the house committee that was responsible for the bill when they were invited to do so? To what extent did they engage with informed contributions, proposed modifications or even proposed text to replace the offending sections?
People need to realise that things like this don't happen overnight, law-making is a process that provides any citizen with the right and the opportunity to make their views felt and known. The masses that have been mobilised by the media houses should have been in Mombasa when govt, the house committee and stakeholders were meeting to among other things look at sections of the Kenya communications amendment act - not now, when their elected representatives have yielded to the due process and submitted the bill to the President.
my two-pence,
Brian
On 12/13/08, Grace Bomu <nmutungu@gmail.com> wrote:
I had signed up for the mars group protest yesterday on the
representation that it was a protest on food prices and MP'S refusal
to pay taxes.
I am disgusted that the media have used our voices for their causes
exclusively, disregarding ours.
As a Kenyan, i think there should be a review on cross-ownership of
media if democracy is to thrive. Also, considering the role of the
media in fueling ethnic/ regional backlash since 2003, isn't there
need for a check on them?
There may be misgivings on the arbitraly powers conferred to the
Minister in charge of security but media has to be checked.
The media should give suggestions on alternative ways to check them
instead of using all their airtime and acres of newspapers to win
public sympathy.
Finally, they should stop branding it ' media bill' as the bill is not
a conspiracy against media but a bill to amend the communications act.
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Grace L.N. Mutung'u
+254721898732
+254736091242
Kenya
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Brian Munyao Longwe
e-mail: blongwe@gmail.com
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