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crucial issues in kenyan journalism

Nov-Dec, 2004: Click on or on heading to read story

Dec 19, 2004

Changing fortunes for the media

A rare entry into this year’s list of Presidential Awards marked a departure in the way media is officially viewed in this country. At last week’s Jamhuri Day celebrations, President Mwai Kibaki decorated three journalists. No such thing has happened to a journalist since independence.

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Government can't be an honest broker in media

The Nation reported on Tuesday a startling development from government. The Ministry of Information and Communications, said the paper in its Business Week pullout, is proposing to set minimum professional standards for broadcasters. Why would government possibly want to do the right thing for the media?

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Online Journalism must not kill real reporting

Critics haven’t’ stopped yelling that Online Journalism would churn out a generation of lazy reporters who claim to bring us all the news, without once laving their desks. Well, the red lights are beginning to flash here.

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Satire livens damp spirits, enriches public debate

There are things that only cartoonists can get away with. Take this week, when practically every news item began with Health Minister Charity Ngilu, at the centre of the ongoing tumultuous debate on the proposed National Social Health Insurance Fund. They twisted her angry posture so her fine feminine features looked more like a warthog. Of all things, a warthog!

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Journalists should protect vulnerable people

This may come to you as a shock. But there are times when a journalist is actually required to hide the identity of his sources and subjects – even if they don’t ask for it.

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Crass infidelity in reporting Murungi review story

The Standard's Thursday story, "Kiraitu changes tune on review," literally generated most heat this week. But purely from a journalistic standpoint, that story leaned too heavily on the presumptuous.

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Media lessons from the US elections
Media coverage of the just concluded US elections could have passed for an entire course on the practice of modern journalism. CNN was outstanding on election night. But the point is not lost on the world that the US media operates purely as a private enterprise.

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