Kenya elections: “No story is worth a life”
With general elections scheduled for 4 March, Kenya sees fears of a repeat of violence following the country’s 2007 election. With increased focus on safety and conflict mitigation, the Kenyan media is preparing for safe and responsible coverage
By Finn Rasmussen, IMS
For Kenyan journalist Daisy Opar, 25, the horrific images she witnessed following the so-called Tana River incident in August 2012, is forever stuck in her mind. Sparked by ethnic and political differences during the pre-election campaign, the incident saw more than 100 people brutally killed in less than a month.
Coupled with the violence following the 2007 elections, the Tana River incident highlights the need for journalists to handle ethnic tensions between warring groups and how to stay safe in the process.
Looking the other way
Following Kenya’s 2007 elections, a total of 1,200 Kenyans were reported killed, thousands more injured, and over 300,000 people displaced according to the UNHCR. Around 42,000 houses and many businesses were looted or destroyed.
In the aftermath of the 2007 elections, Kenyan media actors acknowledged that media had contributed negatively to the violence. Their performance was criticised by outsiders – but also by the media themselves.
“When things collapsed, we media people looked the other way. We betrayed the millions of Kenyans who turned out to cast their votes. They looked up to us but they saw nothing … Had we played our role as media, perhaps hundreds of people would not have died,” said Frank Ojiambo of the Editors’ Guild of Kenya after the 2007 elections.
The media were also victims in the conflict, with media practitioners exposed to violence, traumatised by what they witnessed.
“The images stay with you after the coverage and by the time you realise you need psychological help, you have been very affected,” says journalist Daisy Opar.
Watch the short documentary “Covering Conflict” on Kenya’s 2007/2008 post election violence, and the Kenyan media’s coverage of and role in the conflict. Produced by IMS partner Media Council of Kenya.
[youtube width=”610″ height=”343″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxVMOEpeIeM[/youtube]
Safety training
In October 2012, IMS initiated a programme for Kenyan journalists with the aim of improving their safety, their ability to provide balanced and fair reporting through conflict sensitive journalism and to give them access to trauma counseling.
Daisy Opar, based in Malindi on the country’s south coast, is one of more than 30 journalists who took part in the first of several trainings conducted by IMS and the Media Council of Kenya. She and a handful of other journalists were directly involved in covering the violent Tana River incidents where the safety of journalists was a major issue.
“As a journalist I deserve to protect myself. I have also learned that our media houses should be providing for our safety, which they are not doing now.”
The training that she and her colleagues took part in is one out of several activities for preparing the media for the 4 March elections.
“No story is worth a life”
The IMS and Media Council of Kenya safety programme thoroughly trains a selected pool of experienced journalists enabling them to subsequently train fellow colleagues. Through this process, the Media Council of Kenya expects to reach more than 200 journalists in the hot-spots most prone to violent events.
“Our approach is to train journalists as individuals to enable them to take precautions at a personal level. No story is worth a life. We want to empower them and sensitise them to their own security plans. The environment might become hostile and it is important that they have a contingency plan,” says Victor Bwire, deputy of Media Council of Kenya..
In addition to the safety training, the Media Council of Kenya is setting up a response mechanism that can offer direct support to individual journalists in danger.
In the post-electoral violence following the 2007 election, tension and conflicts developed between security personnel and journalists. To counter a repeat of this, the Media Council with support from IMS has also been running a series of dialogue forums between security institutions and media in hot-spot areas.
“Part of our safety approach is to establish dialogues at local level between journalists and police. We have noticed that police and journalists work against each other. It is important for them to understand their different roles. And we have to harmonise relations”, says Victor Bwire.
The elections in Kenya will take place on 4 March with a run-off election possibly taking place a month later.
