Hi Andrea, Thank you for voluntarily doing this "media review" it is very refreshing to see this kind of self examination by the fourth estate. Your efforts are definitely being noted. Best regards, Brian On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 12:15 AM, Andrea Bohnstedt < andrea.bohnstedt@ratio-magazine.com> wrote:
Sorry for the silence - I went to dig up the report on corruption in the Kenyan media and ended up writing a blog post about it.
Here's the report -- well worth reading alongside any complaints about foreign media.
http://www.africog.org/reports/Microsoft%20Word%20-%20AfriCOG%20Investigativ...
The vast majority of Kenyans get their news from local media, not from CNN. CNN did not organise the violence in the Rift Valley. But I do believe a Mr Sang had been taken to court for that (although I understand it's not a proper court, and I also think he's the only one who was taken to court so far at all). Also, just focusing on the election days is short-sighted - the period running up to it matters just as much. Bear that in mind when you read the report I linked to.
Blog piece here:
http://andreabohnstedt.blogspot.com/2013/03/post-election-thoughts-pet-silen...
I generally like Katrina Manson's pieces in the FT a lot, and she's been particularly good at following up on the ICT failures. BBC , Reuters, Bloomberg usually seem useful (and have local staff, I think). Not a blanket endorsement, but generally sound. I'm sure you can pull out pieces that aren't ideal.
Michela Wrong is one of those who flew in, but she's covered Kenya for a long time, and I like her writing - she was on the International Herald Tribune Latitude site with election blog posts.
The guy who wrote a piece for the New Yorker on the debate, and for Foreign Policy on Odinga, got off to a good start and isn't a a bad writer, but he doesn't have the depth of knowledge for such pieces, so he messed up on details. Kenyan politics are geek territory.
My computer currently won't open the SA Times, so I can't fish out their recent Kenya piece, but can send it round when I find the link.
In the past few days, I've also seen a number of good pieces on the 'tyranny of peace' from Kneyans - not everyone thinks that it was the right approach. Acknowledging diversity in thought - e.g. Muthoni Wanyeki on the unnecessary trade off between peace and justice:
http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/comment/Peace-vs-truth-A-story-of-unnec...
And a blogger on the 'lobotomy of peace': http://gathara.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-monsters-under-house.html?m=1
As for panic shopping: it was a local friend who kicked me into gear. Can't harm, he argued. As I said: the queues were long and very mixed.
On 11 March 2013 21:55, Warigia Bowman <warigia@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear Andrea
Bitte sehr.
Please send us the thoughtful coverage that has occurred since March 9 so we can compliment them.
I am technically foreign. Of course I will apply the same amount of scrutiny and criticism to the local media.
Kind regards, Warigia
On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 1:52 PM, Andrea Bohnstedt < andrea.bohnstedt@ratio-magazine.com> wrote:
Maybe Kenya would have been important enough anyway to cover the elections? And I know of many Kenyans who also stocked up on food as well (when they haven't left the country) - you just needed to spend a bit of time in supermarket queues before the elections to see that it was a very solid mix of everyone who lives here.
Any Kenyan would rightly take offense with being wholesale painted as tribal murderers based on 1,500 people having died in 2007/early 08. But what you do is turn around and do exactly the same thing to 'foreign media'.
Yes, there were completely idiotic, wrong, stereotypical articles, and they should be ridiculed every single one. But there were also many competent, insightful, sober pieces. And there are many members of the international who don't just swoop in for elections, but actually live here. Maybe we can judge them one by one rather than condemning all of them wholesale?
In this forum, it will probably be a tricky argument to make that some of the international media actually still (soberly, factually) reported where the local media just shut up. So I won't make it.
And in the meantime, I hope that everyone who's so irritated with the international media will apply the same amount of scrutiny and criticism to the local media and the corruption inside that system.
On 11 March 2013 20:18, Warigia Bowman <warigia@gmail.com> wrote:
Personally, I am feeling very angry at the foreign media. Thanks Evans for this shocking ridiculousness. we need to expose them!
I wrote this yesterday.
http://digitaldemocracykenya.blogspot.com/2013/03/feeling-frustrated-with-ch...
On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 5:30 AM, Evans Ikua <ikua.evans@gmail.com>wrote:
Wow, this is a gem from Time:
"At this election, with a new 2010 constitution, and a new electoral body with a new — though not glitch-free — electronic voting system, Kenyans’ determination to hold a peaceful election has been palpable. *The popular mood has also been notably anti-Western. Foreign diplomats have been warned of blood-curdling revenge should they interfere in the poll*. *Foreign journalists have been publicly ridiculed and denounced as prejudiced if they predicted chaos and disaster.* And a central message of most candidates’ campaigns was strident, patriotic self-determination."
Read more: http://world.time.com/2013/03/09/kenyas-election-what-uhuru-kenyattas-victor...
-- *---------------------------------------------------- Kind Regards, Evans Ikua,*
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KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth, share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.
-- Andrea Bohnstedt <http://ke.linkedin.com/in/andreabohnstedt> Publisher
www.ratio-magazine.com www.africa-assets.com
-- Dr. Warigia Bowman Assistant Professor Clinton School of Public Service University of Arkansas wbowman@clintonschool.uasys.edu http://democratizingegypt.blogspot.com ------------------------------------------------- View my research on my SSRN Author page: http://ssrn.com/author=1479660 --------------------------------------------------
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www.ratio-magazine.com www.africa-assets.com
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KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth, share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.