By Kodi Barth

Just who, between The Standard and the Daily Nation, misled the country on Wednesday?

The country’s two leading newspapers ran on their front pages the story of Vice President Moody Awori’s ‘Narc strategy meeting’ at Nairobi’s Milimani Hotel. But it read like two stories of two different meetings.

Under the headline, "Moment of Truth", The Standard said "only 32 out of 133 invited friends of government turned up" for the meeting. The Nation said 50 MPs showed up. Again, The Standard said "only seven out of 28 ministers attended" the now controversial meeting. But the Nation’s story, "New bid to oust LDP as Narc split widens," said the attendance "included 10 Cabinet ministers". Then, the Nation categorically said in the 12th paragraph that the meeting lasted two hours. But in a separate story titled, "Awori’s meeting failed by numbers", The Standard reported that proceedings began promptly when the VP arrived at 10.30 and ran to 1.10pm. That is 20 minutes short of three hours.

These are staggering differences in numbers. So what happened here?

Where did the Nation get 50 MPs, when The Standard counted only 32? Or vice-versa. There is any number of possibilities. One, The Standard lost 18 MPs in their count. Two, the Nation created 18 ghost MPs. Three, nobody cared about simple maths. Four, either or both papers doctored figures to dishonestly justify preconceived agenda.

Let us take the case of preconceived agenda.

"The meeting marked the beginning of a new grouping in Parliament which will see the government rely heavily on MPs from [NAK], Ford-People, Safina and the supportive Kanu MPs to pass its Bills," the Nation wrote.

Who told the Nation reporter that it is certain the government will from now on rely on non-LDP and Ford-Kenya MPs (the only exceptions in that list), unless the reporter is reading from the "government" script? The paper’s nuances practically suggested a pro-government stance on the story. "Together [the friendly MPs] should give the government a working majority of 136 MPs," the paper added. From this reading, it is not farfetched to argue that the paper leaned towards a bloated attendance of the Vice President’s meeting to give it forced legitimacy.

On the other hand, it is equally tenable to argue that The Standard sought to deny the VP’s meeting both life and thunder. "The meeting lacked both the fire and numbers expected to turn the tide of rebellion against the government in the House, particularly by Kanu and LDP," said the headline story.

The paper’s second story, cited above, equally began with a similar pushdown. "The Narc MPs consultative meeting called by Vice President Moody Awori was a low-key affair."

But the list of trouble doesn’t end there. From The Standard’s admission that "All MPs had agreed not to let out anything that had been discussed at the meeting" (a statement that is itself unsubstantiated), it is clear that no reporter was actually inside the meeting room. Yet the Nation purported to authoritatively report what actually took place inside that room.

"The Milimani meeting directed Narc Chief Whip Norman Nyagah to discipline MPs who were not supporting the government," the paper wrote, without telling the reader how the reporter obtained that information. Also, that the MPs "gave Mr Awori for the third time a message to take to President Kibaki – sack rebel members from your government to get our support."

There is no argument. Either reporters this week cared nothing about the sacrosanct obligation to accuracy, or there was conspiracy at the editorial level to spin the news. It is staggering to imagine the latter; so let’s stay with the former, most likely possibility.

If journalism needs any rules, the starting point would be that reporters strive to report accurately the factual truth or reality of the event through A) direct observation or B) the use of authoritative, knowledgeable and reliable human sources and/or relevant documentation.

Accuracy is the key word here. Be in a news story, feature or entertainment, accuracy is sacrosanct in journalism. There may be arguments in newsrooms about writing style, or about the best way to interview a reluctant source, but there is no debate about errors. A journalist may be tolerated if his or her writing does not sparkle, but reporters won’t last a week in a serious newspaper if errors trail them.

So how could our newspapers let Wednesday happen? Again, there is any number of possibilities.

Time, the first scapegoat in the journalism industry, could lead the blame. Speed, the essential ingredient of much journalism, is actually accuracy’s enemy. Checking – whether it involves calling another source or leafing through the thesaurus dictionary for the proper shade of a word’s meaning – takes time. That extra minute, even 20 seconds, may mean the story won’t make the first edition. But the revelation of such glaring contradictions in one story alone is a lesson that to check we must, always.

The second dodgy scenario is that when the reporter is not on the scene and information is obtained from those who were present, as it most likely did in the stories above, the story is actually a second-hand account. Some stories are even based on accounts that have been filtered twice before reaching the reporter. That’s a third-rate story. Either way, the bottom-line in each case is that reporters here, anxious not to be out-reported by rival crew, grab anything and everything that floats by.

The result is a news culture racing downhill. Our news media may be getting blindly absorbed in disseminating information, rather than gathering it.

Kodi Barth teaches journalism at United States International University-Nairobi.
If you have seen questionable content in the press, write to kodi@kodibarth.com
Website: www.kodibarth.com/