Two weeks of government flip-flop on the truth about Transport Minister Chris Murungaru has thrown the spotlight on something crucial – the role of public journalism.

The July 27 news that Murungaru was a persona non grata and should never step on British soil – not even be carried there on transit elsewhere – instantly sent the government into a spin. The unfolding drama sucked the media into the spin.

The runaround began at the top. Cabinet ministers, including Vice President Moody Awori, condemned Britain and demanded an explanation on the Murungaru saga. Foreign Affairs Minister Chirau Ali Mwakwere even wondered how Britain could treat Murungaru "like an ordinary person." And Cooperative Development Minister Njeru Ndwiga scoffed that he wouldn’t care if his own visa was revoked.

Not long afterward, the tune slightly began to change.

Government spokesman Alfred Mutua announced that Kenya had sent a letter to the High Commission demanding answers on why protocol was breached. It was like saying the government didn’t really have a problem with anyone issuing a blanket ban on a sitting cabinet minister. The problem, Mutua told journalists, was "we want to know why they did not inform us first.”

But Belgut MP Charles Keter had already gone to parliament and thrown a spanner into the works. He demanded a ministerial statement on what was really going on. For a while, a long while, nobody in government seemed to know what to tell the country. Britain had said in its banning order that they simply didn’t like Murungaru’s character, conduct and associations. The UK embassy even added that a confidential letter had been sent to the minister detailing specific reasons. But Murungaru jumped up with a denial. He said he had been sent a letter that contained only generalities.

Eventually, a ministerial statement arrived in Parliament. Foreign Affairs Assistant Minister Orwa Ojode stood up in parliament Thursday last week and told the country that this entire matter was personal, and government shouldn’t be drawn into it. When the Press crowded in on him outside Parliament for elaboration, a flustered Ojode threw up his arms. “I only read the official statement prepared by the Permanent Secretary,” he said before TV cameras. “What does this have to do with Ojode?”
And the media went to town, singing Murungaru had been abandoned. "Carry your own cross, State tells Murungaru" was how the Daily Nation summarized the issue in its banner headline Friday last week. The Standard equally said “it was up to Murungaru to battle the ban.”

And this really got people started.

Assistant Minister Maina Kamanda yelled fowl, claiming that the Ojode statement was unauthorized, and was actually an LDP ploy to bring down Murungaru. Government spokesman, Mutua, called a Press conference and described the ministerial statement as inaccurate. And Ojode’s boss, Mwakwere, returned from an African Union meeting in Addis Ababa with a different song. Mwakwere had allegedly called his assistant from Addis Ababa, instructing him to read the said statement in Parliament. Upon return, however, he called the Press and rubbished the prior British statement over Murungaru.

“After careful consideration,” said Mwakwere, mimicking the British statement with sarcasm you could hung your hat on, he Chirau Ali Mwakwere, Minister of Foreign Affairs, was still demanding an explanation.

The trouble in this entire drama is that the media was equally forced into changing its story on a daily basis. The country needed to know what was going on. The media had no choice but to keep trailing the flip-flop. And herein lays journalism’s dilemma. People begin to wonder what media is all about. Is media simply a mouthpiece for politicians’ shouting matches? Is media all about “he said”; “she said”? Isn’t media also a forum for public dialogue and debate? Don’t media serve a wider purpose, of directing the public in the right path?

The question is about public journalism; the idea that, among other things, the modern press is tasked with fashioning a coherent response to society’s troubles. Many practitioners of Journalism, however, are resigned to idea that theirs is a trade that inevitably creates trouble. As a matter of fact, some diehard practitioners view hostility toward their work as proof of a job well done. That media people are going to be loathed and despised for one reason or another, no matter what they do.

But more reflective journalists see their job as finding the common ground amidst all the noise. They realize that crossfire, the angry sound bites that really mean nothing, is a permanent feature of politics. Such journalists are no longer content with just telling the story. They go beyond the mechanical job of just spewing out information and hoping that people will take the information and act. No, journalism has to also help people act on the chunks of information it churns out. And that often means searching out the middle ground, some place where people can come together.

A public that is engaged as well as informed; a country that can deliberate as well as debate; a people that not only know their problems but can also act on them – this is what public journalism can do.

At its best, journalism addresses people in their capacity as responsible citizens, not as idle consumers, think-seeking spectators, or powerless victims. The Murungaru drama should have brought this point home.