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President Uhuru Kenyatta’s willingness at the recent media roundtable in Mombasa to share the contractual agreements on the standard gauge railway raised a fundamental question: How have the media used the right to access information to push for government-held information?
And to what extent have the media used the laws and administrative codes on the right to information to seek content that they give the audiences or comment on matters of public interest? If the President is willing to share the document voluntarily, could the media, for example, push to be given the agreements on oil, gas, coal and other such information under the Access to Information Act?
Similarly, those handling government communication also ought to learn and practise proactive information disclosure, especially relating to these big government projects. The documents should have been shared already.
The lack of an official way of communication to the public has seen consistent protocol goofs, conflicting information, inadequate communication, slow flow of information, lack of basic tools and equipment in government and poor projection of the government’s image.
In the era of constitutional requirements of Articles 33, 34 and 35, information sharing — for that matter, credible and factual information released in a timely manner — is central to managers, including those in the government. Kenya is a signatory to the Open Government Partnership and has, on many occasions, indicated its commitment to open governance and adherence to the Constitution.
The media would greatly benefit and insulate themselves from harassment, including judicial processes, if they wrote requests to public agencies for specific information or tracked it through the agencies’ open portals or private commentators on public matters.
Instead of people demanding responsibility from sources of stories and information used by journalists, pressure is being mounted on the media alone.
In an effort to balance the many interests, the media are forced to irresponsibly report on some issues. That could spur cases of defamation, media harassment and the possibility of the media reporting in a manner that leads to violence.
Amid the increasingly wrong breaking news or one-sided speculative stories, many people start being sceptical towards the media as a tool for conveying objective information.
A number of players have come up with ways to enhance information availability to journalists, which the latter can tap into and enrich their stories with facts and depth. With the myriad of ICT platforms, accountability and transparency, tracking the information posted on open data portals by public agencies has become easy and affordable.
Platforms such as websites, the Kenya Open Data Portal, Integrated Financial Management Information System (Ifmis) and social media accounts for government departments and officials have increased the avenues for holding government to account.
Journalists should use these tools in their investigative work.
Mr Bwire is the programmes manager and a journalists safety trainer at the Media Council of Kenya. [email protected]
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