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Security personnel carried out a brilliant operation during the Tuesday attack at the Dusit complex on Riverside Drive, Nairobi. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the media.
Information is the most powerful ammunition and giving it to the wrong party is tragic. The careless media coverage was risky and hindered the rescue.
I am not a security expert but, obviously, such operations thrive on confidentiality, which brings about the element of surprise, ‘blindfolding’ the terrorists.
The media, however, ‘gave eyes’ to the terrorist, who only needed a Twitter app in their phones or access to any local TV channel to follow and counter the operation. Terrorists undergo military-style training and that aided them.
Journalists on social media even went as far as streaming details such as the location of besieged people and minute-by-minute updates on how loud the explosions were, creating panic among Kenyans and killing hope.
The success of a terror attack is not just the death toll but the publicity it elicits.
The main aim is to instil fear in the citizens, making them to lose trust in our security agencies and national institutions.
All they need is media attention and, at 14 Riverside Drive on Tuesday, they got plenty of it on a silver platter!
With the highly unprofessional and unethical reporting, media houses were putting on a show at a terror scene and security operation. They were merely storytellers hindering lifesavers.
All I imagined was journalists actively trying to gain recognition and make the attack all about them, how well and hard they worked and sacrificed to cover the event.
Some front pages of the daily papers did not help in containing the situation with headlines that were a free advertisement for the terrorists, who use the media to terrify the country, and the world.
To no surprise, the ‘cold’ international media made their conventional appearance, twisting the facts and posting insensitive images of the casualties.
Their irrationality and unethical nature of coverage of terrorism attacks in Africa is shocking.
It can’t be compared with far much worse attacks — like 9/11 or the Paris or London bombings.
The less publicity terrorists get, the lower the success of their attacks. Let’s not become conduits for their propaganda.
Anyone who watched Al Jazeera’s coverage of the Riverside Drive attack noticed their high standards of journalism.
Besides their other powerful updates, at 9am they showed a clip from a surveillance camera.
People streaming updates online as the scene of a terror attack should be arrested.
Ernest Moturi O., via email.
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