An eminent authority in the media stood up this week and said the most profound thing about journalism. The Nation Media Group Chief Executive Officer, Mr Wilfred Kiboro, was on the spot at Bomas of Kenya on Tuesday over the coverage Kenyan media have given to the country’s ongoing constitutional review process. Speaker after speaker blasted the media for focusing on sideshows at the expense of giving the nation qualitative updates on progress at Bomas. And Kiboro’s response was the finest apologia.

"Sometimes we get it wrong; in fact there’re many times that we get it wrong," said Kiboro. "This is because the media is also composed of people who are human, and people who also have limitations in terms of understanding ... the issues."

It couldn’t be said any better.

Among the set of ideas for journalists trying to navigate the shoals lying between fact and fiction, is the virtue of humility. Journalists should be humble about their own skills. Skilled journalists already know that they should be sceptical of what they see and hear. But just as important, they should be sceptical about their ability to interpret stuff they gather.

Modesty

One authority put it this way: Journalists need to show modesty in their judgement about what they know and how they know it, said Jack Fuller in his 1996 book, News Values: Ideas from an Information Age.

No one expects journalists to be all-round sages. No one expects them to know it all. This is a humbling admission for a journalist, but also an honest one. What many fail to acknowledge is the power of that honesty: a messenger who comes forth as a mere bearer of the message is more likely to be trusted by the citizen.

The opposite only breeds the kind of scenario that Bomas delegates have so furiously reacted to.

While the rest of the world is today moving toward embracing the freedom of the Press as an indispensable component of democracy, delegates rewriting our constitution appear hell-bent on a resolution that a new constitution should control the media. Our own experiment with multiparty democracy and the subsequent 2002 peaceful political transition, for example, may be largely attributed to the emergence of a brave, free Press in the past decade. Yet, leaders are covered every other day exhibiting utter contempt for the people of the Press.

Why? Two hypotheses:

First, the Press may have seriously failed to read the signs of the times these previous months. The country was sitting at Bomas, putting down structures that will run our society, an activity that was bound to touch on the Press.

Yet, media houses appeared to be busy with their own turf wars. They started racing each other with headlines debated by many as sensational, but clearly targeted at commanding authority in the market place.

It is about this time that the gutter Press also started to worry the high and mighty in government with libellous stories. But the fatal blow appears to have come from the independent Press. The hotly debated K-street prostitution stories initiated by the Sunday Nation mid-December, last year, seem to have angered a significant part of the country. At Bomas, the anger exploded in an outburst of one delegate.

"The media is packaging sex and selling it at Sh35, and we are buying it!" screamed the unnamed delegate. The Press couldn’t be trusted with freedom, the delegates seem to have resolved.

It is against this backdrop that Kiboro came to Bomas last Tuesday with a carrot and a stick.

"I’d like to appeal to the delegates, to say that even in as much as the way the media reports is very frustrating, let us not resort to shooting the messenger," begged Kiboro. Then the stick: "I’ll also tell you what not to do about the media," he said. "The media is very powerful in itself. And I think we need to understand that the power the media wields can be used for the good or for the bad. But I think if you want to get the best out of the media, the way to do it is not to throw tantrums."

Hypothesis

The tantrums, however, seem to have been preceded by mistrust. Which brings us to the second hypothesis why Kenyans appear to be increasingly weary of the media.

It is possible that our media has not made a conscious effort to cultivate honesty with the citizen. Too often, reporters have authoritatively thrown into hard news their personal reading of events as facts. Too often, conclusions have been drawn in clearly developing stories. And when events take a different twist days later, a citizen who believed previous Press reports might have no reason to trust the Press any more.

A recent example is the lead a local broadcaster struck after National Assembly Speaker’s first Kamukunji with MPs over Bomas III. "Parliament will be recalled after all," said the broadcaster, without attributing the assertion to anyone. Two weeks and another Kamukunji later, the assertion implying a return of the constitutional review to Parliament is yet to be decided as a conclusive fact.

When reporters acknowledge the fact that they can’t really know it all, they get to be more thoughtful in acquiring, organising and presenting news. And a more trusting relationship between the journalist and the citizen is developed.

Does it apply, therefore, that whatever journalists tell us should be taken with a pinch of salt? Does this render the truth of every journalistic assertion relative? Not if the rules of verification and attribution are followed to the letter.

Copyright © 2004 . The Standard Ltd