Susan Anyangu
7 March 2008
Nairobi — The Media Council of Kenya (MCK) has reiterated its plan to audit the coverage of the December General Election.
Chairperson of MCK, Mr Wachira Waruru, on Thursday said the council had received numerous complaints from the public and Government regarding the coverage of the elections.
He said some of the complaints were serious and thus the need to establish what went wrong.
"The Kenyan media have been under intense scrutiny over the coverage of the polls. In this regard and within our mandate, the council has set up a committee to carry out a national audit of the coverage of the elections," Waruru said.
He said the committee had begun its work and the final report would be published in the local dailies.
Waruru also said the findings would be distributed to media houses for management to incorporate the recommendations in their in-house training programmes.
In the past few weeks, MCK and the Government have been embroiled in a tussle regarding who should investigate the coverage of elections. Both have set up committees to carry out the audit.
"Last year, MCK and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) organised training for journalists on election coverage. It emerged during the workshops that there was a serious gap in training of journalists in electoral reporting," Waruru said.
He was speaking during an award ceremony at a Nairobi hotel where journalists who successfully completed the training were given certificates.
Ms Elizabeth Lwanga, UNDP's Resident Representative, reminded the media that they had an important role in national development.
She said the role of the media was more crucial now since they were key to national healing and reconciliation.
"We have high expectations of the Kenyan media. Your role is central in the reform process and the healing and reconciliation of the nation," Lwanga said.
Also present at the award ceremony were the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information and Communication, Dr Bitange Ndemo, the Director of Information, Mr Ezekiel Mutua, and the deputy resident representative of UNDP, Ms Nardos Bekele-Thomas.
During the workshops held over a period of six months, 447 journalists from 57 media houses were trained.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 The East African Standard. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
