Description
The media has been a critical part of the Kenyan election process. During the election process, the media always remains at the forefront of presenting different opinions. The media plays a critical role in negotiating political and electoral discourse. It calls on dozens of ‘’experts’’ and ‘’analysts’’ to make their contributions that justified their titles. Media houses deploy resources to cover campaigns in various parts of the country giving rise of fact-checking. In Kenya, the media is the only industry specifically protected by the constitution. This is remarkable considering that most of Kenya’s press is actually private owned. While it plays a very important role, it still has a way to go in terms of the factual, unbiased and objective coverage of elections
Media’s well-cultivated reputation for independence and vibrant reporting has been questioned, given its penchant for superficial regurgitation of politicians’ statements and unwillingness to engage in investigative reporting. The media has been accused of inciting ethnic violence, overlooked on critical issues of public importance, got carried away into the political drama of competition over its mandate to inform the electorate, and failed to unpack policies and issues that various political candidates have presented. Panel discussions have featured surrogates for the two main contenders shouting over one another and, in the process, managing to shed more darkness on already obscure subject matters such as the technicalities of the law governing the election. This paper therefore seeks to examine the role of media in the advancement of democracy, assess the media performance in the 2017 election process, and interrogate the adherence to the guidelines on election reporting by Media Council of Kenya
