Without disagreeing with the opinions expressed, perhaps one should seek to formally define what "irresponsible reporting" is. The article in question had times, places, names and dates. The writers even sought comment from the parties involved and published the story, they appear to have done their research and have their facts together and also included the denials from the parties or their representatives of those involved in the said meeting having been diligent enough to seek comment from the concerned parties. Just merely denying an established fact does not make the person who established the fact "irresponsible". To the best of my knowledge the newspaper has not retracted the story and none of the aggrieved parties (the state not being one of them) has filed libel suits in which case the "accused" would have a chance to show how they established their facts or face the consequences. It may have gone unnoticed, but this is the second raid against a media establishment the first having been against the Citizen last week. The Citizen's articles were more inflamatory in my opinion and did not seek comment or denials from the aggrieved parties. In short let us not be keen to condemn the "accused" for irresponsibility if they have not been given a chance to demonstrate how they 'established' their facts. This is not to say that there are not irresponsible journalists amongst the media fraternity. Infact there are some who will willingly accept money to publish stories on behalf of certain parties or entities in order to gain popular public opinion or swing it in disfavor of another. The police claim that they received information on what appears to have been a matter to take place in the future, why not simply arrest and charge the individual who had received the funds ? As outlined below by Brian, several questions remain unanswered, but hopefully at the end of the day the AG will not seek to terminate or frustrate any cases related to the matter until they reach their logical conclusion. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brian Longwe" <brian@pure-id.com> To: "Mike Theuri" <mike.theuri@gmail.com> Sent: Thursday, March 02, 2006 6:46 AM Subject: Re: [Kictanet] Re: Burning and Closure of Standard Media Group I'm afraid on this one I agree with Wainaina - if it weren't for the irresponsible reporting there wouldn't have been opportunity (or excuse) for this kind of "retaliation" Having said that, though, I think that this is going to provide our government (which is currently undergoing some very pleasing reforms) an opportunity to really curtail and/or limit police actions. The incident yesternight raises several fundamental questions: 1) did the police have a court order to enter premises? 2) had they requested (and been denied) access to the premises? 3) Did they have a court order to confiscate any equipment? 4) Did they have authority to use force? I would be very interested to see an estimate from the Standard Media Group in terms of business loss - considering the $$$$ they charge for advertising, both on air and print.... would be even more interesting to see who their lawyers decide to hold responsible and send the bill to... I hope they don't back down and actually mount a full frontal to get to the bottom of this... There are definitely some people somewhere who need to answer... Brian