STOP PRESS: When ‘orders from above’ could kill the news

By Mwangi Githahu

Recent events in Kenya, including the shutting down of TV stations to prevent them from broadcasting the swearing-in of Raila Odinga as “the people’s president”, remind me of the first time I came up against a bullying authoritarian state and how useless such threats proved in the end because buried truths have a way of emerging zombie-like from their freshly-dug graves.

I began working as a reporter in September 1989. In April that year, The Financial Review, an upcoming news magazine that had been started by former Weekly Review journalist Peter Kareithi, had been banned by the government of President Daniel arap Moi for what Attorney General Matthew Guy Muli characterised as “mischievous stories.” The Financial Review later successfully fought the ban and continued publishing for a few more years before it folded.

In 1989 there were three national daily newspapers in Kenya: the Daily Nation, the East African Standard and the ruling party Kanu’s newspaper, the Kenya Times. There was also the state-owned Kenya News Agency. Broadcast news was provided by the state broadcaster KBC and KTN.

This state of affairs meant that the government controlled most of the news media either outright or through proxy. While the Aga Khan may have controlled the Nation group of newspapers, some of the firm’s other shareholders and directors owed their allegiance to the Kanu government. Meanwhile, the Standard was owed by Tiny Rowland’s LonRho, which maintained a cosy relationship with the powers that be in every country it operated.

Amongst journalists, this era was a period of self-censorship in a bid to avoid state censorship. Every now and then the newspapers would push the envelope of government criticism a little further, but they were always aware that the government could push back at any time.

It might sound far-fetched today, but in those days there were always rumours doing the rounds that one or more of the reporters, proofreaders, typesetters or printers was on the payroll of the state security services. Their role was to give their masters a heads-up when anything remotely controversial was set to make an appearance in the newspaper. Once they had passed on the information, the next step would be a phone call – sometimes from a State House functionary but often from the president himself – to an editor demanding that the story be killed.

Sometimes editors would try and fight for a story to remain, using reason to appeal to the president or his functionaries, but often they were forced to give in and so the controversial story would never see the light of day. Editors had to tread carefully because sometimes the newspaper’s owners would be involved and one could easily find themselves out of a job for not realising that the media owner and the state were on the same side in a particular matter.

So to begin work as a journalist at that time was exciting, if a little daunting. And to work for the Kenya Times, the ruling party’s newspaper, was seen as somewhat controversial, but I chose to thrill in the notoriety. Also I told myself that I was working with a group of consummate professional journalists and not petty party propagandists.

I was employed by Philip Ochieng, the editor-in-Chief, and spent my first few months on the news desk under the guidance of a team that included news editor Chris Musyoka, deputy news editor Jeremiah Aura, chief reporter Eric Shimoli, parliamentary reporter George Munji, business reporter Eric Sagwe and managing editor of the Sunday Times Amboka Andere.

By July 1990, Kenya’s politics were heating up. For many the breaking point had come after the murder of the country’s Foreign Affairs Minister Dr. Robert Ouko in February 1990. Ironically, Ouko had been one of the staunchest supporters of President Daniel arap Moi’s government and had lent his not inconsiderable intellect to defending the government on the international stage.

Two of the more vocal politicians fighting the system that they had until recently been at the heart of were former ministers Kenneth Matiba and Charles Rubia, who had also fallen out with Moi and Kanu. The two had joined forces with veteran opposition figures, such as former vice president Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Masinde Muliro, Martin Shikuku, Raila Odinga, James Orengo, lawyers Gitobu Imanyara, Paul Muite and others in calling for Kenya’s “second-liberation”.

With the support of some foreign envoys, particularly from the United States and a newly united Germany, these opposition leaders had begun to shake the foundations of Moi’s single-party system.

Lashing out at this unprecedented opposition, Moi had ordered the arrest and detention without trial of a number of those opposing him. On July 4 after they had held a press conference calling for a pro-democracy rally at Nairobi’s historic Kamukunji grounds on the July 7th (popularly known as Saba Saba), Matiba, Rubia and Raila Odinga were arrested and subsequently detained without trial.

Undeterred, their comrades in the struggle decided to go ahead with the rally, which had been declared illegal and an estimated 6,000 people showed up to hear what they had to say. Moi and Kanu were not going to sit back and just let this happen on their watch so riot police were sent in to disperse the crowds and arrest the political leaders using force, teargas and batons.

The crowd refused to go quietly and began throwing rocks at the police and stoning cars. The opposition leaders hopped onto the back of an open pick-up truck rousing their supporters all through Nairobi’s Eastlands estates of Kariokor, Kariobangi, Ngara and elsewhere. That moment provided one of the iconic photographs of the 1990s.

Like reporters from all the other newspapers, we were sent out to cover the dramatic and historic events of the day and “ate teargas” and felt the blows of the police rungus (batons).

At one point, Shimoli, Munji, the photographer John Muchene, our office driver Muli and myself had driven through the main street in Ngara in the direction of Kariokor when we came up against a series of human walls with riot police in the centre, their backs to us and sandwiched by angry crowds who had lit bonfires in the middle of the street.

For our sins, our car happened to look like those that members of the CID and Moi’s not so secret police, the Special Branch, drove around in. As we approached the crowd, they stopped us believing we were the hated police and would have begun stoning us had we not revealed that we were reporters. Nevertheless we didn’t dare disclose what paper we were from, for fear that they would turn on us again.

Having gathered our news and pictures we drove back to the newsroom. As we were working to beat the deadline, Philip Ochieng received one of the dreaded State House calls telling him to drop the Saba Saba stories because President Moi did not want to see them. We were made to understand that the Nation and the Standard had received the same call and were also going to kill the stories. The government feared it would look as if it had lost control of the situation and there is nothing an authoritarian state fears more.

“Orders from above.” “A call from State House.” These were phrases that preceded the killing of a story in that era. Sometimes the editors obeyed and sometimes, even at the Kenya Times, they took their chances.

On this day, Ochieng gave in to the bullying and threats, while his counterparts decided to publish and be damned, if it came to that.

It was shameful and disheartening. The Times had completely ignored the biggest news of the day and the second biggest story that year, after the murder of Ouko. I was so disappointed that I seriously considered resigning from my job and giving journalism up altogether.

The fact that we were forced to play catch-up in the following day’s edition and nothing had happened to the other newspapers just made our sacrifice appear pointless. Worse still, whatever reputation we had as journalists, at least with the public, was thrown out of the window.

The moral of the story is that publishing the truth will always piss off the state, but in a democracy, that should not be a consideration. Eventually, the second liberation could not be stopped. It was televised and published, even by the Kanu-owned media.

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STOP PRESS: When ‘orders from above’ could kill the news

By Mwangi Githahu

Cape Town, South Africa – APATHETIC MIDDLE CLASS TAKES TO THE STREETS

President Jacob Zuma is not going anywhere in a hurry. However, a number of South Africans are battling to understand why not.

As far as they are concerned, factions are rife in the ruling party, there are whispers and dark mutterings about private armies being recruited to defend party headquarters and to infiltrate opposition protests. There have been high-profile sackings from the Cabinet and resignations from parliament. As a result, a normally apathetic middle class has taken to the streets to demonstrate with opposition parties, trade unionists, senior members of the clergy and civil society.

These South Africans are also concerned about what they perceive as the securitisation of the state. The recently appointed police minister is talking about fighting fire with fire in his threats to those who dare protest against the state. The acting police commissioner is dismissive of court rulings allowing protests. There is open lawfare in the courts. Parliament is once more discussing a motion of no-confidence even though the ruling party’s numbers in the House mean it is at best a waste of effort.

Unhappy South Africans can see signs that that their economy is under attack, with international ratings agency after agency giving the country the thumbs down. This middle class coalition of black and white South Africans is hurting and are upset by the stories they read in their newspapers, magazines, see on TV and hear on their favourite talk radio stations about the perceived influence of the shadowy Gupta family in affairs of state.

The recently appointed police minister is talking about fighting fire with fire in his threats to those who dare protest against the state. The acting police commissioner is dismissive of court rulings allowing protests

They are up in arms that a recent reshuffle saw the well-liked finance minister Pravin Gordhan fired and as a direct result the country’s credit rating was revised to ‘junk’ status – meaning hard times lie ahead.

Furthermore, these people are upset that last year, the president was found by the Constitutional Court to have failed to uphold the Constitution.

Meanwhile, the president at the centre of all the dissension and intrigue appears unmoved, unimpressed and unamused as he chuckles and pushes his spectacles higher up on the bridge of his nose using his middle finger. In fact if anything the president is digging in his heels, whipping up sympathy in his substantial constituency of diehard supporters, among whom are the majority of South Africans who make up the grassroots of this democracy. He is also reliant on a top political leadership from with his ruling party that seems unable or unwilling to take him on, in any meaningful way.

In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if a fly on the wall of the presidency were to report that President Jacob Zuma, in the manner of Effie White – the character from the Broadway musical and film, Dreamgirls, who refuses to accept that her relationship with her boyfriend is on the rocks – was defiantly humming ‘And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going’ to himself in response to the chants of ‘Zuma must go’ coming from the street protestors.

THE FIRST REAL AFRICAN BIG MAN SINCE 1994

If anyone bothered to ask them, many from north of the Limpopo – that place that some South Africans like to refer to as ‘Africa’ as if it were not the same landmass that they live on – could tell these angry, increasingly vocal middle-class South Africans protesting Zuma’s continued reign that in fact what they are experiencing is their first real African Big Man as president since the dawn of democracy in 1994.

The much revered Nelson Mandela was the country’s first black president. He remains a world icon loved and admired by his people and the world. Most importantly he relinquished power after only one term, even though, had he wished to, he could have had a second.

Mandela’s chosen successor, Thabo Mbeki was renowned as an intellectual who popularised the African Renaissance idea in his famous ‘I am an African’ speech. However, he displayed very ‘un- African’ tendencies by not fighting tooth and nail to cling to power when he was challenged by his former deputy. Mbeki was just not cut out to be an African Big Man.

Thabo Mbeki was renowned as an intellectual who popularised the African Renaissance idea. However, he displayed very ‘un-African’ tendencies by not fighting tooth and nail to cling to power when he was challenged by his former deputy. Mbeki was just not cut out to be an African Big Man

Mbeki was briefly succeeded by Kgalema Motlanthe. Aware he was a stop-gap, Motlanthe served as South Africa’s president for only six months, during the ANC’s most tumultuous period in post- apartheid South Africa – the recalling of President Mbeki by the ANC in 2008. Motlanthe could have done the African Big Man thing and swindled President Zuma out of the top job, but instead gave in to the party’s wishes and made way for the man who had engineered Mbeki’s downfall.

Jacob Zuma arrived in office a heroic veteran of the struggle against apartheid. He had also been Mbeki’s deputy and was seen by his supporters and others on the SA political scene as a man more sinned against than sinning. This, despite a series of scandals that would have ended the careers of many politicians.

In fact, it would appear that what some have described as Zuma’s ‘charisma and strength in adversity’ helped buoy him up during his first years in office. To quote the Kenyan teacher, actor and journalist John Sibi-Okumu, who was writing elsewhere on the subject of the African Big Man, ‘The overriding thesis is that the goodies transmogrify themselves into baddies, mainly courtesy of external influence driven by the desire to pillage our considerable resources.’

Today this same ‘charisma and strength in adversity’ continues to attract supporters to Zuma from the ANC grassroots and give the president comfort in the knowledge that the majority of the people are still with him.

The numbers don’t lie – at the last test of Zuma and his party’s popularity, the 2016 local government elections, the ANC was the largest party overall, earning 53.9% of the total vote. The main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, had 26.9% and Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters party garnered 8.2% of the vote.

‘Don’t be scared of them [the opposition parties who have recently been turning up the pressure his presidency] when you see them marching saying Zuma must go… But what has Zuma done?’

These numbers and the way the ruling ANC is run plus the party’s dominance of parliament where at the 2014 general election the ANC acquired 249 out of a total 400 seats are what give Zuma the confidence to say – to loud cheers from the audience by the way, as he did during his 75th birthday celebrations on April 12 this year, ‘Don’t be scared of them [the opposition parties who have recently been turning up the pressure his presidency] when you see them marching saying Zuma must go… But what has Zuma done?’

This is the classic African Big Man stance that sticks in the craw of the country’s middle classes who fill the airwaves on talk radio stations and letters to the editor columns in the serious newspapers around the country calling on President Zuma to ‘do the right thing’ and resign.

THE BIG MAN’S QUINTESSENTIAL TOOL – THE APPOINTMENT OF CRONIES One of the ways that President Zuma has cemented his grip on office has been by using the quintessential tool in the Big Man’s bag of tricks to cling onto power – the appointment of cronies to the various institutions including parliament, where he has carte blanche.

According to observers and analysts, over the past few years, Zuma has used cadre deployment to his advantage, packing the security services, the public service including parliament, and of course the ANC itself, with loyalist cronies who will support him with their last breath.

At the same time, members of Zuma’s family have amassed vast personal fortunes reportedly through corrupt deals using their family connection to the Big Man.

This centralisation and personalisation of power is being seen to have gradually laid the foundation for the edifice that President Zuma presides over. It is in its way no different from what other Big Men have done through the history of the continent. The likes of Mobutu, Moi, Mubarak, Mugabe and Museveni – to name a few – relied on such patronage and loyalty to ensure their grip on power.

The next big set piece in the battle to remove Zuma or shame him into quitting is yet another parliamentary vote of no-confidence, now set for May. The last motion of no confidence against Zuma, tabled in November 2016, failed when 216 voted against it and 126 MPs voted in its favour.

The likes of Mobutu, Moi, Mubarak, Mugabe and Museveni – to name a few – relied on patronage and loyalty to ensure their grip on power

In the past few years, there have been a number of failed parliamentary votes of no-confidence against President Zuma. Serious political analysts know that the system as it stands today is designed in such a way that makes it impossible for these votes to succeed unless the members of the majority party in parliament rebel en masse and vote with the opposition. As long as the ANC’s rules govern how its MPs behave in parliament, this is unlikely to happen. Zuma will win again.

The South African proportional representation electoral system works in the following manner: Voters vote for a political party, not individuals. The political party then gets a share of seats in parliament in direct proportion to the number of votes it got in the election. Each party then decides on members to fill the seats it has won.

Professor Ben Turok, an ANC stalwart, anti-apartheid activist, economics professor and former South African MP, explained the reasons for Zuma’s confidence during a recent radio interview on the Eusebius Mackaiser show on CapeTalk 567 that featured a discussion on ‘yet another upcoming parliamentary vote of no-confidence against the president.’

Prof Turok said, ‘I think you people [the media] are raising a red herring. We have been down this road [motions of no-confidence in Zuma] quite a few times and in every case, the caucus of the ANC meets and discusses it, and takes a decision and all members are bound by that decision. If you do not follow that decision you will lose your job. It’s as simple as that. So why is there so much speculation about whether people are going to break ranks?’

‘Within the ANC there are many whose conscience is bothering them a great deal and would love to vote against Zuma, but they can’t and will not’

Turok added that hopes for a successful rebellion by ANC MPs against Zuma were unrealistic, ‘I know that within the ANC there are many whose conscience is bothering them a great deal and would love to vote against Zuma, but they can’t and will not.’

A FEW VOICES SPEAKING OUT

Indeed there have been a few voices from within the parliamentary ANC speaking out against Zuma. For instance, ANC MP Makhosi Khoza, chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Service And Administration, recently broke ranks with a scathing critique of how ‘the politics of patronage has claimed the sanity’ of her party’s leaders. In an interview with the Times newspaper she said the ANC had to fix its internal problems before 2019 or face a heavy defeat at the polls.

Reminded that a number of MPs could pursue careers out of parliament if they lost their seats, Turok averred that the reality was a political zero sum game and just simply crossing the floor as in some other parliamentary democracies was impossible in the South African system. He said that while it is true that a number of ANC MPs have professions and other options to fall back on, and here he gave himself as an example (he resigned from parliament to return to academia) the only thing that would change the current situation was if for instance the EFF were to double its vote in the national election, thus gaining 20 seats to offer rebels.

Those who constantly undermine Zuma forget one thing. He is trained in sabotage, having been recruited into Umkhonto we Sizwe, the militant arm of the ANC, in 1962 by a stalwart of the liberation struggle, the late Moses Mabhida

Those who constantly undermine Zuma forget one thing. He is trained in sabotage and if you are taking on the president you must keep in mind that he was recruited into Umkhonto we Sizwe, the militant arm of the ANC, in 1962 by a stalwart of the liberation struggle, the late Moses Mabhida, and participated in sabotage operations in KwaZulu-Natal. He then joined the South African Communist Party in 1963 and as a member received military training in the Soviet Union. He later joined the African National Congress Department of Intelligence where he was the head of intelligence.

Like any other African Big Man, President Zuma is not going to be forced to do anything he doesn’t want to do unless and until the anti-Zuma momentum builds up to become an unstoppable force. But then again, it is not as if the president will be standing by watching this happen without having a few tricks up his sleeve.

Published by the good folks at The Elephant.

The Elephant is a platform for engaging citizens to reflect, re-member and re-envision their society by interrogating the past, the present, to fashion a future.

Follow us on Twitter. STOP PRESS: When ‘orders from above’ could kill the news

By Mwangi Githahu

Cape Town, South Africa – PEACE AT ALL COSTS: BUT ONE DAY, YOU WILL HAVE TO PAY

During an election year such as this one in Kenya, much is made by politicians, the news media and to a lesser extent, the voting public, of media objectivity and neutrality.

The examples of how certain media houses and journalists showed partisanship and worse in the run-up to the 2007 election, and how much of the Rwandan media behaved leading up to the 1994 genocide, are dragged out and displayed as a caution to any Kenyan journalists and media houses that may be tempted to stray from the straight and narrow.

The British journalist Michela Wrong has spoken in the past of how the Kenyan media adopted a new ‘peace at all costs’ approach after the notorious 2007 election. In an attempt to reduce the likelihood of conflict, they started to avoid live broadcasts (or more general coverage) of potentially inflammatory content.

This strategy seemed to work at the 2013 election, which was peaceful, but as Wrong notes, the media’s self-censorship had other, more problematic effects – for example, helping to fuel the government’s ‘draconian’ new media law. If you suppress, muffle or bypass legitimate debates during elections,’ she said, ‘you could be storing up trouble for the future.’ As was recently demonstrated at the US elections and before that during the Brexit vote, real issues such as the economy, poverty, health, education and defence, are abandoned at the altar of bias

The August 2017 election in Kenya is that future and from where I sit, it would appear to me that ‘legitimate debate’ has been stifled in the media by the reporting of trivialities as well as not particularly skilful manipulation by the different political groupings and of course the tribalism issue.

Media practitioner Oscar Obonyo queried this trivialising of issues in favour of a tribal agenda in a recent social media posting where he queried how voter registration numbers were being reported. Obonyo observed, ‘The media and politicians are now falling over themselves concluding who between [the ruling] Jubilee [party] and [the nascent] National Super Alliance, NASA, will win the August polls.’

Obonyo, a former writer and analyst on the Sunday Nation, asked, ‘Why are you boxing us in regional blocs and conditioning us to vote along tribal lines? Do we as Kenyans have no crucial campaign issues? This is cheapening a very important exercise about our lives to a mere tribal competition of numbers!’

This last point of Obonyo’s recalls the much debated Tyranny-of-Numbers hypothesis that was generated a few years ago by occasional media contributor Mutahi Ngunyi, leading to the conclusion that Raila Odinga and his CORD Alliance lost the 2013 election to Uhuru Kenyatta’s Jubilee Alliance the moment the voter registration ended on December 18, 2012.

The facts on the ground are that pretty much ever since the dawn of Kenyan Independence, the country’s voting has been largely directed by tribal leaders, some might say warlords. The only exception to this rule came during the period between 1969 and 1991 when the country went from being a de facto to a de jure one-party state where tribal blocs were neither particularly obvious nor relevant in the way Kenyans voted.

Indeed, at all elections I’ve covered in Kenya as a reporter since the return to multiparty election of 1992, one of the most unfortunate aspects affecting the mainstream media has been this manipulation into a tribal agenda by leading politicians. It has caused many journalists (and at times, entire media houses), to blur the distinction raised by Obonyo and others.

A PASSIVE PUBLIC: WHAT MORE COULD POLITICIANS WANT

As was recently demonstrated at the US elections and before that during the Brexit vote in the UK, fact checking and real issues such as the economy, poverty, health, education and defence, are abandoned at the altar of bias.

When the media wittingly or unwittingly leads news consumers to see everything through the distorting prism of tribal strengths and weaknesses, the voters themselves end up becoming passive objects of the ‘news agenda’ being pursued in tandem with the wishes of the political tribal chiefs.

What ends up happening is that the public is rendered passive via bombardment by a constant news cycle highlighting the tribal minutiae of the election as per the media’s agenda.

Pesach Benson of the honestreporting.com site and author of Red Lines: The Eight Categories of Media Bias, highlighted what he called the Eight Violations of Media Objectivity: Benson lists these as:

1. Misleading definitions: Prejudicing readers through language. 2. Imbalanced reporting: Distorting news through disproportionate coverage. 3. Opinions disguised as news: Inappropriately injecting opinion or interpretation into coverage. 4. Lack of context: Withholding a frame of reference for readers. 5. Selective omission: Reporting certain events over others, or withholding key details. 6. Using true facts to draw false conclusions: Infecting news with flawed logic. 7. Distortion of facts: Getting the facts wrong. 8. Lack of transparency: Failing to be open and accountable to consumers of news.

I can say without fear of contradiction that one time or another in the run-up to the August election (which, in these days when Kenya would appear to be on a permanent election campaign footing, is the period since the end of the 2013 election) the Kenyan media has been guilty of each of these sins.

A common error by journalists and others is to assume that objectivity helps ferret out the truth. In actual fact, objectivity in journalism has nothing to do with seeking out the truth, except in so much as truth is a matter of accurately reporting what others have said.

Some of us who have been engaged in news gathering over the years have learned that reporting involves judgements about what is a good story, who will be interviewed for it, what questions will be asked, which parts of those interviews will be printed or broadcast, what facts are relevant and how the story is written.

In theory, journalists would like to claim that their own biases and the pressures from advertisers and media owners do not affect their work because of their professional norm of ‘objectivity’ but the reality on the ground often tells a different story.

HE SAID, SHE SAID… EXACTLY NOTHING

We like to think that when writing a story or broadcasting, we do not overtly express our own views, evaluations, or beliefs. But do this successfully tends to replace journalistic investigation altogether and instead limits a story to the ‘he said, she said’ discussion of clashing opinions, rather than facts gathered by the reporters themselves.

And while some think that such reporting is ‘balanced,’ there are others, including myself, who believe it is disingenuous in that it perpetuates the impression that reporters are simply conveying the ‘facts’ and not trying to influence how people interpret them.

Some of us who have been engaged in news gathering over the years have learned that reporting involves judgements about what is a good story, who will be interviewed for it, what questions will be asked, which parts of those interviews will be printed or broadcast, what facts are relevant and how the story is written

When it comes to a situation such as the coverage of elections, at least, there are those who believe that ‘just the facts’ without any evaluation of the story or the reporter’s personal view of a story in a publication that is known to lean one way or the other, is unhelpful and somewhat dishonest.

As far as I’m concerned, the ideal of complete journalistic objectivity is in practice an unrealisable dream. And the sooner journalists and media houses come to accept this, the better. It would appear I am not alone.

A paper entitled The Myth of Objectivity in Journalism: A Commentary, by Richard F. Taflinger published by the Washington State University, argues, ‘Preconceptions, prejudices, biases, cultural norms and mores, education, superstition, peer opinion, all play their role in an people creating their own realities.’

Taflinger writes: ‘These filters are preconceptions, biases, prejudices and attitudes that influence the way the mind processes information and therefore how the individual constructs his or her world and reality.

‘For example, several witnesses see a traffic accident no one could survive. Nonetheless, nobody is hurt. All the witnesses see, objectively, the same event. Yet, what they “see” differs according to how they filter the information: A devoutly religious person will see the hand of God in sparing the victims; a politician may see a necessity for government action to make that intersection safer; an attorney may see a potential lawsuit; a sexist may blame a driver of the opposite sex. It is a problem well known to law enforcement and the legal profession: Eyewitnesses can’t seem to agree on what they saw. It is not the fault of the witness. It is simply that what is perceived must be understood, and understanding usually comes through relating new information to old. Whatever the old information is influences how the new is understood.’

In fact, what is needed is for the consumer of news to be more discerning and to be aware that the reporter’s worldview or that of a particular media house, are always going to be a component of the news.

This is not a new phenomenon and as I don’t see it dying out any time soon, perhaps then for the sake of transparency the media should drop all pretence at neutrality or objectivity and let the consumer decide if they want to support a particular newspaper, website or broadcaster.

It happens in other democracies such as in Europe, where certain newspapers are known to be right or left leaning as the case may be. In Britain, all newspaper readers know for instance that the Telegraph, the Times and the Daily Mail will favour the conservatives, while the Guardian and the Daily Mirror will bat for the Labour Party.

In the US, it’s the same with newspapers of record such as the New York Times, known to support the Democrats, and others such as the Wall Street Journal that tend to be more conservative in their views and readership.

IDELOGY IN KENYA: SO, WHAT TRIBE ARE YOU?

Of course, the problem in Kenya is that there is no longer any strong ideology guiding political parties and alliances, which again reduces public discourse to the division of tribes.

At Independence, Kanu was perceived as an alliance of the two ‘big tribes’ – the Kikuyu and the Luo – while the so-called smaller tribes tended to coalesce in Kadu.

At the beginning of the second multiparty dispensation in Kenya, at first with the original Ford party, it appeared as though the tribal pairing off had ended, but soon with the splitting of the party into two and later three Fords, it became apparent that Ford-Kenya attracted mainly Luo support while Ford-Asili was supported mainly by Kikuyus (who split their vote with the Democratic Party which cast itself as a party of the wealthy as opposed to a particular tribe) and Kanu was mainly a Kalenjin, Luhya and Kamba outfit. Since then, the tribal alliances may shift somewhat at the elections, but the parties remain vehicles to propel one or the other tribe to State House. Even the much touted 2002 election that saw Kanu thrown out of power for the first time since Independence, saw tribal chiefs come together as Narc, leaving mainly the Kalenjin in Kanu.

Back in 1992, there were three main daily newspapers: Daily Nation, the Standard and the Kenya Times; two mainstream political news weeklies, Weekly Review and the People newspaper; and two broadcasters, the state-owned KBC with its TV and radio stations and the then Kanu-owned (but not that you’d know it) KTN TV station that tried to act as a commercial entity to counter the state broadcaster, which pretty much gave the opposition a blackout.

The Kenya Times (where, in the interests of disclosure, I worked at the time) was owned by the ruling party Kanu and made no bones about it. The paper supported Kanu and though there was never anything on paper to suggest that this was policy, editorially it did all it could to reflect Benson’s eight violations of media objectivity.

Daily Nation tried to position itself as the newspaper of record and full objectivity, but it was clear to anyone who took an interest in such matters, that the newspaper was pro the DP. It made a point of running DP adverts in a prominent position on its front pages, claiming when questioned that the party had booked the space and elbowed out all the other parties who had to fight for less prominent positions on the inside pages.

Many Kenyans have embraced a poorly regulated social media scene and more and more news websites, a number of them purveying fake news or propaganda, have been taking advantage of this to push their agenda

Though the Standard was at that time owned by the LonRho conglomerate and as such nominally independent, the head of LonRho in Kenya was Mark Too, a known factotum of Kanu’s President Moi, and so while the paper tended to cover the opposition Ford parties, it was clear that in the end it danced to the Kanu tune.

By the 2007 election, the Kenyan media landscape had changed quite a bit from how it appeared in 1992, and so, to some extent at least, had the political landscape.

Kanu, which had been routed at the 2002 election, was now a mere shadow of its former monolithic self and the Kenya Times newspaper had thus fallen on hard times; it would eventually fold in 2010.

Daily Nation, which had for most of the Moi-Kanu regime been broadly opposition-leaning, was under the Kibaki-Narc administration perceived by many to be a pro-establishment newspaper leaving the once pro-Kanu Standard to assume the opposition newspaper mantle while in 2007 the brand new Star newspaper also seemed to favour the opposition.

The once influential state-broadcaster no longer enjoyed dominance of the airwaves as there were now at least 90 private FM stations and more than 15 private TV stations giving it competition and the public, ostensibly more choice – even though many of the private radio and TV stations are owned by a handful of media houses that in turn are owned by leading politicians and their supporters.

AND LASTLY, THE INTERNET: STFU, HATERS

Another difference today is related to comparatively high Internet use in Kenya boosted by better connectivity enabled by submarine cables and the widespread use of mobiles, which has enabled more Kenyans than ever to access the web. In fact, according to Internetworldstats.com, there were 21 million Internet users by December 2013 in a population of 44 million people.

As a result, many Kenyans have embraced a poorly regulated social media scene and more and more news websites, a number of them purveying fake news or propaganda, have been taking advantage of this to push their agenda.

While on paper the country’s Constitution contains potential curbs on press freedom with regard to privacy, incitement and hate speech, from purely anecdotal evidence there would appear to have been very little monitoring of hate speech and political propaganda on the fast growing social media scene or for that matter vernacular radio.

To counter this perception, the Communications Authority of Kenya recently announced plans to monitor social media activity and has reportedly secured monitoring equipment to help it achieve this aim. The regulator has also warned that it could pull the plug on social media if national security comes under threat.

But it remains to be seen whether such measures will be enough to prevent problems the closer the country gets to the election.

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STOP PRESS: When ‘orders from above’ could kill the news

By Mwangi Githahu Cape Town, South Africa – THE SUCCESSION WILL NOT WAIT FOR THE STARTING GUN

The starting gun has yet to go off, but that hasn’t stopped the campaigns to succeed President Jacob Zuma at Union Buildings from racing ahead.

At the end of January this year, South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress finally announced the exact date of the party’s 54th National Conference in December 2017, and by so doing, drew a line under the phony war between factions of the party for what I am calling the Zuma Succession.

Like the original ‘phony war’– the derisive term given by journalists to the period from October 1939 when Germany invaded Poland to March 1940 when no land operations were undertaken by either the Allies or the Germans – the phony ANC war among those most likely to succeed President Jacob Zuma at the helm of the continent’s oldest liberation movement has seen no real action and has been a time when the various factions of the party have been busy testing the waters to measure support for their preferred candidates in the battle to come.

The phony ANC war among those most likely to succeed President Jacob Zuma at the helm of the continent’s oldest liberation movement has seen no real action and has been a time when the various factions of the party have been busy testing the waters

According to a statement from the party’s headquarters at the end of a three-day National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting on January 27, ‘The National Conference will be held from December 16-20 in Gauteng.’

And while officially the party has announced a roadmap to be taken before potential candidates can begin to marshal their forces to lobby for support for leadership positions at the conference in December, in reality the race has been on ever since October 2015, when President Zuma declared he would not be standing for an extra term as president of the party.

The ANC’s conventions dictate that hopefuls for party posts should not campaign for themselves and that their supporters should wait for nominations to be made at branch level, which in this case would be in September and October this year.

As the party battles to contain political factions from jumping the gun ahead of its elective conference in December, Secretary General Gwede Mantashe did not seem to help matters when he said recently that the party would have to ask itself difficult questions if it did not elect its deputy president to succeed the outgoing president.

The Business Day news website quoted Mantasheas saying: ‘Now, I don’t want us to create traditions that do not exist, but when we elect a deputy president, you should be having succession in mind, that’s a more correct argument. Once you have a deputy and you elect someone else, you ask yourself difficult questions: Is this deputy not competent enough to be the successor?’

At the party’s NEC in January, all the unofficial campaigning and strategising by the various factions and their putative candidates was supposed to have been rendered a false start. However, it is clear that unlike at the Olympics, nobody appears to have been disqualified for jumping the gun.

It is generally agreed among political commentators and analysts that the ANC is split into two broad camps. These are the so-called tenderpreneur faction and the ‘reformist’ faction.

A SPANNER AMONG THE TENDERS

Nevertheless, the president’s 2015 statement about standing down, did throw a spanner in the works for the tenderpreneur faction that had reportedly been working on the premise that Zuma would hang on as the party’s head, until the party’s National Governing Council meeting of 2019.

This group hoped that by so doing, Zuma would help the party harmonise its presidential term with that of the national government.

However, this faction seems to have fallen foul of the principle of political uncertainty, which is contrary to Isaac Newton’s clockwork universe, where everything follows clear-cut laws on how to move and prediction is easy if you know the starting conditions. The political uncertainty principle makes such prediction very fuzzy.

Now, I don’t want us to create traditions that do not exist, but when we elect a deputy president, you should be having succession in mind, that’s a more correct argument- ANC Sec-Gen Gwede Mantashe

It would seem however that not all was lost for the group. Their main aim is to prevent Zuma being succeeded by trade unionist-turned democracy negotiator, turned uber-successful businessman and deputy leader of both the party and the country, Cyril Ramaphosa. If Zuma won’t hang on, then their plan B is for a woman to succeed Jacob Zuma and for this campaign they have the backing of the powerful ANC Women’s League.

By the way, their candidate is not just any woman, but NkosazanaDlamini- Zuma, until recently the head of the African Union and an ANC heavyweight in her own right. She was also once married to President Jacob Zuma.

Interestingly, President Zuma himself has for some time been suggesting that it was time South Africa had a female president – a move which has been seen by his supporters as being outright backing for Dlamini-Zuma.

In fact, one commentator, Susan Booysen, a professor at the Wits School of Governance, suggested as far back as 2014 that the plan was for Dlamini-Zuma to be parachuted into the party presidency via the creation of a position of second deputy president, as a way to dilute Ramaphosa’s standing.

The tenderpreneur faction represents the status quo. However, recently, it was reported that the pro-Zumafaction may be reconsidering their backing for Dlamini-Zuma because she appears to have reservations about having her own reputation and legacy tainted by being seen to favour them. The former AU chair has reportedly been unwilling to give any undertakings that she will pander to their agenda.

THE WIFE IS HER OWN WOMAN, IT SEEMS

Dlamini-Zuma may have been married to Jacob Zuma once and may still have cordial ties with him, but she has also been known to chart her own political path and at times this has been one diametrically opposed to the president’s.

According to one analyst, ‘There are apparently also concerns, including from the president, that Dlamini-Zuma still maintains a close relationship with former president Thabo Mbeki. It is still a sticky point that at the ANC’s Polokwane Conference in 2007, Dlamini-Zuma featured on both the Zuma and Mbeki slates but she declined the Zuma camps’ nomination and stood on Mbeki’s ticket.’

While it is common knowledge that Zuma and his predecessor Mbeki see eye to eye on very little if anything at all, the one thing that is generally agreed by political observers is that both men have showed an antipathy to their deputy ascending to the top job. Earlier in the year,Zuma told interviewers from the SABC that it was not ANC policy or tradition that an ANC deputy president should automatically replace a president during an elective conference.

In Kwa Zulu Natal, a hotbed of Zuma support, there is open opposition to Ramaphosa in the ANC ranks. Ramaphosa has also been vigorously opposed by the ANC Women’s League, the party’s Youth League and the uMkhonto we Sizwe (abbreviated as MK) Veterans league. All of these groupings have already pronounced Dlamini-Zuma as their preferred candidate to succeed Jacob Zuma both as party and national president.

Conventionally, the ANC prefers that aspirants not promote their own candidacy and instead pushes for nominations to be made at branch level. Of course, in these situations, what the party would prefer and what actually happens tend to be two different things.

On the other hand, the traditions of the ANC, which have seen the deputy president ascend to the presidency, suggest that the scales are tipped in favour of the ‘reformists’ who back Ramaphosa. However, Ramaphosa’s silence on important matters have caused him to be seen as aloof.

THE JOHANNESBURG CANDIDATE

Nevertheless, and for whatever it may count for the voters in the party’s election, in the boardrooms of the firms that make up the Johannesburg Stock Exchange,Ramaphosa is the best candidate. He has also been endorsed by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) a powerful bloc in the tripartite alliance (which also comprises the ANC and the South African Communist Party) that has enormous influence on who eventually takes over the ANC leadership.

Already the undeclared contest for the top job has caused friction among the party cadres. For instance, an NEC member has already publicly put down the Youth League president, Collen Maine, for going ahead to endorse ‘certain leaders for the presidency without the mandate to do so.’

It is generally agreed that the ANC is split into two broad camps:The so-called tenderpreneur faction and the ‘reformist’ faction

But as the factions square up against each other in the phony war, seasoned Zuma watchers are expecting the wily old operator to have an agenda for his own succession very different from the one ascribed to him in the current accepted narrative. It is entirely possible that Zuma’s ready support for Dlamini-Zuma is all smoke and mirrors to cover the identity his real preferred successor.

There have been suggestions that the president’s support for Dlamini-Zuma over Ramaphosa is calculated and that he is fully expecting Dlamini-Zuma to be rejected because of her perceived close ties to him and that this would then prepare the ground for a ‘compromise’ candidate who would be the person Zuma has wanted to take over from him all along.

The question, however, is just who this ‘dark horse’ candidate could be if he or she even exists?

Other than Dlamini-Zuma and Ramaphosa, there have been other names mentioned as possible successors to President Zuma. The frontrunners among these are Speaker of parliament BalekaMbete and Home Affairs Minister MalusiGigaba.

Mbete, who is seen as close to the president, would fit the mould of a female successor and has already made statements to suggest that she may fancy a shot at the main chance. In April last year, a commentator on the Daily Maverick website,RanjeniMunusamy, wrote that the Speaker, who also happens to be ANC chairwoman, appeared, at that time anyway, to have the support of the ‘premier league,’ an informal grouping associated with President Zuma and that she had spoken of having had ‘many people’ approach her to run for the ANC president’s job.

THE YOUTH LEAGUE FACTOR

Gigaba, on the other hand, would fit into the narrative where some ANC members have been calling for generational change at the top of the party. Born in 1971, Gigaba is a former president of the ANC Youth League, which over the years has come to be viewed as an influential component within the broader ANC, one that provides a training ground for future ANC leaders. Nelson Mandela and Julius Malema, now head of the opposition Economic Freedom Front party, were also former presidents of the league. Gigaba too has said he is not averse to suggestions that he lead the party, hinting during an interview in August 2016 that while it was not up to him to decide who became the next leader, he was available. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqC44XldMvY

That said, the big money at the moment is on either Ramaphosa or Dlamini-Zuma. They are the foremost candidates and also the two with the most to prove. The pro-Zuma factions of the party would like to see his legacy continued by Dlamini-Zuma while the anti-Zuma camp are backing Ramaphosa hoping he will rid the party of Zuma’s legacy of perceived corruption.

Below are biographies of both the leading hopefuls in the Zuma Succession race. The profiles were compiled from multiple sources:

Cyril Ramaphosa

Cyril Ramaphosa was born on November 17,1952.

He was elected Secretary General of the African National Congress in 1991. He is widely respected as a skilful negotiator and strategist, and played a leading role as an ANC negotiator at CODESA (Convention for a Democratic South Africa).

He is also known for the role he played in building up the National Union of Mineworkers into the biggest trade union in South Africa.

Following the first democratic elections in 1994, Ramaphosa became a Member of Parliament. He was elected chairperson of the Constitutional Assembly on May 24,1994 and played a central role in the drafting of the South African Constitution.

Many expected him to go straight into national politics, but it was not to be. The story goes that he wanted to become Nelson Mandela’s deputy in 1994, and that when Mandela overlooked him, he became so upset that he refused to attend Mandela’s inauguration as president and he also declined a post in government.

If he could not be king in the political realm, he would conquer the economic one.

After leaving mainstream politics, Ramaphosa became the symbol of black capitalism in South Africa. Among other positions, he is executive chairman of Shanduka Group, a company he founded. Shanduka Group has investments in the resources sector, energy sector, real estate, banking, insurance, and telecoms (SEACOM). He is also chairman of the Bidvest Group and MTN. His other non-executive directorships include MacsteelHoldings, Alexander Forbes, Standard Bank and SABMiller. In March 2007, he was appointed non-executive joint chairman of Mondi, a leading international paper and packaging group, when the company demerged from Anglo American plc.

There have been suggestions that the president’s support for Dlamini-Zuma over Ramaphosa is calculated and that he is fully expecting Dlamini-Zuma to be rejected

Today, according to a BBC profile, Ramaphosa is the second richest black businessman in South Africa, with global financial publication Forbes putting his wealth at $675million. (The richest black businessman just happens to be his brother-in-law, Patrice Mostsepe.)

Ramaphosa always kept a foothold in the ANC, serving on its top leadership body, the NEC – a position that, his critics say, gave him insider information and unparalleled access to government ministers as he built his business empire.

The BBC wrote of him: ‘These accusations grew after police killed 34 workers in August 2012 at the Marikana platinum mine – the most deadly police action since white minority rule ended.

‘With Mr Ramaphosa a director in Lonmin– the multinational that owns the mine – he was accused of betraying the workers he once fought for, especially after e-mails emerged showing he had called for action against the miners for engaging in “dastardly criminal acts” – an apparent reference to their wildcat and violent strike.’

Although to some his reputation was tarnished, his election as ANC deputy leader showed he retained massive support among the party’s rank and file, dating back to his role in the struggle against apartheid.

His nomination for the post was supported by influential figures in the National Union of Mineworkers, which he founded in 1982, as well as the South African Communist Party – a clear sign that, despite his wealth, they do not believe he has abandoned his roots.

Nkosazana Clarice Dlamini-Zuma

Born on January 27,1949 in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, NkosazanaDlamini-Zuma is the immediate former Chairperson of the African Union. Previously, she served as the South African minister of home affairs.

She is a longstanding heavyweight in the ANC, boasting anti-apartheid struggle credentials as an underground member of the party when it was still banned. Some of these positions include being a member of the NECand the party’s National Working Committee. She is also a member of the Women’s League NEC and the National Progressive Women’s Movement of South Africa.

A medical doctor by training, Dlamini-Zuma was married to President Jacob Zuma from 1972 to 1998. The couple met in exile in Swaziland, during the depths of the apartheid era. In 1972, Dlamini- Zuma became Zuma’ssecond wife and the couple went on to have four children.

Though divorced, they are seen to still enjoy good relations, often shaking hands and hugging in public at ANC events or government conferences. Nevertheless, their political relationship has been through ups and downs with Ms Dlamini-Zuma at times seeming to back her former husband, and at other times overtly siding against him.

Dlamini-Zuma went on to become democratic South Africa’s first health minister between 1994-1999, having been appointed by Nelson Mandela. His successor, Thabo Mbeki, put her in charge of foreign affairs, where she worked to implement his much-derided ‘quiet diplomacy’ with neighbouring Zimbabwe as it sank into a deep crisis under President Robert Mugabe.

In Zuma’s administration, she served as home affairs minister, where she was credited with reform of a department mired in bureaucracy and corruption, before she took the African Union Commission posting in 2012.

The soft-spoken Dlamini-Zuma appears to lack the easy charm and common touch that her former husband has used so effectively to shore up his support, and she still must overcome widespread prejudice over her gender.

According to a BBC profile, the suspicion, now openly articulated by President Zuma’s opponents, is that the current South African leader is actively promoting his ex-wife’s bid to replace him, in the belief that as president, she will be able and willing to protect him from what he sees as a range of politicallymotivated legal challenges and corruption investigations that could well pursue him after he leaves office.

Ms Dlamini-Zuma will have to position herself as something other than a continuity candidate if she is not only to win December’s vote, but to convince South Africans that after nearly a quarter of a century in power, the ANC still deserves to remain in power come 2019.

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STOP PRESS: When ‘orders from above’ could kill the news

By Mwangi Githahu Capetown, South Africa – Of all the controversies swirling round the figure of President Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma aka Msholozi – his clan praise name – probably the best known and most discussed around South Africa is the issue of his super controversial Nkandla homestead.

More than the 783 corruption charges reinstated in April this year after the High Court in Pretoria found that the decision to drop the corruption charges back in 2009 was “irrational” and that they were as serious as the allegations of “state capture”– which is a type of systemic political corruption in which private interests significantly influence a state’s decision-making processes to their own advantage – the issue of Nkandla is the one that has contributed the most to what one media commentator referred to as President Zuma’sannishorribilis.

If you have only just returned from deep space, or have never heard of South Africa, Nkandla is the president’s private home in KwaZulu-Natal Province. It is controversial because public funds to the tune of over R246 million (about $17 million) were used to give the homestead an alleged security upgrade.

Among the “improvements” made to the South African president’s private home using taxpayer’s money were a helipad, underground bunkers, a chicken run and a swimming pool actually described as a ‘firepool’ – since, it was claimed, the pool was built as a source of water for firefighting

Among the “improvements” made to the home by the Ministry of Public Works using taxpayer’s money were: Security fencing around the whole compound, accommodation for the president’s security, a helipad, underground bunkers, a chicken run and most questionable of all, a swimming pool actually described as a ‘firepool’– since, it was claimed, the pool was built as a source of water for firefighting.

Meanwhile, according to South Africa’s Sunday Times newspaper, a dossier compiled by a former Public Works Department deputy director general (equivalent of an undersecretary), contained invoices showing that state money had been used to pay for things such as thatching, meranti (a rare wood) and aluminium doors and window frames, tiles, paint, plastering, air-conditioning and other unexplained extras.

South African law provides for a Ministerial Handbook that incorporates the Executive Code of Ethics and regulates probity in public life. According to this set of rules, the Public Works Ministry can spend up to R100,000 (about $7,000) on security upgrades to the private homes of state officials and anything more than that should come out of the official’s pocket.

A March 2014 report issued by South Africa’s immediate former public protector (ombudsman) Thuli Madonsela, whose term ended in September this year, found that the president had benefited unduly from these home improvements and on March 31, 2016, the Constitutional Court delivered a unanimous ruling stating that the president and the ANC-dominated parliament had failed to uphold the country’s Constitution by failing to comply with Madonsela’s report on the matter.

Facing calls to resign from prominent public figures and veteran ANC activists from Mandela’s Robben Island days, such as Ahmed Kathrada, Zuma appeared on national TV on April 1, 2016 and made an apology for using public money to fund his private residence.

APOLOGY FAILS TO MAKE THE STORY GO AWAY But the story of Nkandla, now described by one commentator as ‘a monument to corruption,’ began in 2009 when a newly elected President Zuma, who has been reported to have been fairly impecunious at the time, decided to build a permanent rural home for his family. However it would take years for the scandal to mature fully.

Previously, in December 1997, during the African National Congress’s national conference held at Mafikeng, Zuma had been elected as the ANC’s deputy president. In 1999, he was appointed the deputy president of South Africa, a position he held until he was relieved of his duties by state president Thabo Mbeki in June 2005 pending his rape trial and allegations of racketeering and corruption.

The Madonsela report showed that the R246 million was eight times the money spent securing two private homes for South Africa’s first democratic president Nelson Mandela, and more than 1,000 times that spent on the home of FW de Klerk, South Africa’s last apartheid-era president

At this point –in the run-up to the 2009 election –observers had written off Zuma’s political career. Meanwhile Zuma’s supporters claimed their man’s legal problems were the result of political meddling by his rivals including president Mbeki. Proving he still had grassroots support, Zuma managed to garner enough votes in the ANC to propel him to be elected the party’s president in December 2007 at the national conference in Polokwane, Limpopo, polling 2,329 votes against Mbeki’s 1,505. Zuma’s supporters saw his charismatic popular touch as a refreshing contrast to Thabo Mbeki, who was seen as a rather aloof president.

He was acquitted of rape, butdespite the fact that he had always denied charges of money- laundering and racketeering, stemming from a controversial $5billion arms deal signed in 1999, the corruption cases against him proved harder to slip out of.

Meanwhile, Mbeki continued to serve as the country’s president, but in September 2008, in the same month that the ANC NEC resolved to recall Thabo Mbeki as head of state, the graft cases against Zuma were controversially dropped by the National Prosecuting Authority just weeks before the elections that saw him become president. In the interim, Kgalema Mothlante, later Zuma’s deputy for one term, served as the third president of the Republic of South Africa.

A month after Zuma ascended to the presidency of the country – reports by investigative journalists Mandy Rossouw and Chris Roper in the Mail & Guardian newspaper pinpoint the date to between May 18 and 29 – a security assessment was carried out at Nkandla and by the end of August 2009, construction had begun.

The story of how Rossouw (who died in 2013) and Roper (who went on to become editor of the M&G) accidentally stumbled on the Nkandla story is now the stuff of legend among South African journalists.

Rossouw was out interviewing residents of the town of Nkandla about what it was like to have the president as a neighbour. With Roper she drove in November 2009 to the president’s residence to take some photos to illustrate the story and it was then that they noticed some construction and heavy earth-moving machinery. According to Roper in a piece he wrote after Rossouw’s death, ‘Mandy’s interest was piqued, and she inveigled our way into the site office, a small, meltingly hot prefab building with three car wrecks abandoned outside. There was our first evidence of the extent of what Nkandla was destined to become, both as a large complex and as a massive story: Architectural drawings taped to a wall, showing extensive development plans.’ Rossouw’s story reported that the expansion to the existing compound would cost the taxpayer R65 million (about $4.5 million). At the time, upgrades to the compound included a private military hospital and parking lot, a visitors centre, the helipad installation and, according to the M&G’s investigative report, a two-storey house and guest house.

Before they published the story, the journalists contacted the government for comment and the first reaction was evasiveness. Writes Roper: ‘Our conversation with them reads like a dress rehearsal for the following four years of obfuscation and spin.

Initially, the government said that it had no record of such a development and no hand in any of Zuma’s personal property endeavours. However, in a statement released just before the story was published, they changed their tune slightly, saying: ‘The Zuma family planned before the elections to extend the Nkandla residence, and this is being done at own cost. No government funding will be utilised for the construction work.’

History and the Public Protector’s investigation –which began after a series of complaints from the public and opposition parties about the misuse of state funds on the project were lodged with Madonsela’s office between December 2011 and December 2012 – have shown the government’s statements to have been economical with the truth.

In a more than 400-page report on Nkandla titled ‘Secure in Comfort.’ the Public Protector found the cost of the Nkandla upgrades were now estimated at R246 million (about $23 million) but that the original estimate for the work in 2009 had been about R27 million.

While there was never any proof that the president had made any decisions about spending himself, it would appear that those who were making the decisions were acting under the impression that they were doing his bidding.

Madonsela’s report said that while it could be ‘legitimately construed’ that President Zuma had misled parliament over the renovations and that this was a ‘bona fide mistake,’ on the whole the project was unlawful and constituted improper conduct and maladministration.

DE KLERK, THE MODEST PRESIDENT?

The report showed that the R246 million was eight times the money spent securing two private homes for South Africa’s first democratic president Nelson Mandela, and more than 1,000 times that spent on the home of FW de Klerk, South Africa’s last apartheid-era president.

In the report’s executive summary, Madonsela wrote: “The president tacitly accepted the implementation of all measures at his residence and has unduly benefited from the enormous capital investment in the non-security installations at his private residence.”

Madonsela thus found that the president had acted in violation of the Ministerial Handbook, which would only have granted him R100,000 worth of security upgrades, and ordered the president to reimburse part of the expense

Before the report made its way into the public domain, the issue of Nkandla was probed, investigated and questioned in Parliament even to the point of an attempt to launch a vote of no- confidence against the president.

All the while, President Zuma and his supporters, who had decided to fight the report, repeatedly told parliament he used his own family funds to build his homestead. The public was told that the president had not ordered the improvements, had not been involved in the details, and had not unduly benefited from the work.

In the meantime, the Police Minister came out with his own report into what the press was now referring to as “Nkandlagate,” exonerating the president and seeming to absolve him of any liability – even setting aside Madonsela’s suggestion to pay back the money.

The president, his lawyers and the security cluster in the Cabinet, which is comprised of the Minister of Police, the Minister of Defence and Military Veterans, the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services, the Minister of Home Affairs and the Minister of State Security, raised questions about the Public Protector’s conclusions and eventually took her to court in 2013 for not giving them enough time to study the report before it was released to the public.

For a while, it looked as though the Constitutional Court, where the matter eventually ended up, would rule in favour of the president. This view was driven by some observers who feared that Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng– who was appointed by the president in 2011 and initially thought to be close to him – would rule in his favour. However, any doubts were removed when the Constitutional Court of South Africa ruled that the president’s failure to repay the money violated the Constitution.

In his ruling, the Chief Justice described the Public Protector as the biblical David who had gone against the mighty Goliath and emerged victorious.

The powerful Gupta family – an Indian-South African business family whose most notable members are the brothers Ajay, Atul and Rajesh “Tony” Gupta as well as Atul Gupta’s nephew Varun Gupta –have become notorious for their allegedly close relationship with the president

Mogoeng said the Public Protector’s report and remedial actions had only been directed at Zuma and he had been expected to address the issues without any interference by the ANC-dominated National Assembly. He found that the president and the National Assembly had violated the Constitution by setting aside the Public Protector’s suggestions for remedial action. The judgment said that the president would have to personally pay the amount determined by the National Treasury.

After the Constitutional Court judgment, President Zuma went on national television and apologised to South Africans in an effort to draw a line under the long-running scandal. He said he would abide by a court ruling that he must repay government money spent on upgrading his rural home.

In June, the Treasury determined that the president should pay R7.8 million (about $550,000) for the non-security upgrades, after the Constitutional Court in March ordered Zuma to pay back some of the R248 million of state money spent upgrading his private home.

In September, in line with the court order issued in March, the president took a loan from a bank and paid off the R7.8 million for the non-security upgrades to his private Nkandla home. The amount he paid was calculated in line with 2009 prices, which is when the project started.

THEN ALONG CAME AJAY, ATUL, RAJ AND THE BOYS

If the president thought that the Nkandla matter would end and he would get some respite now that he had paid back the money, he was mistaken. Controversies continue to dog his presidency from all sides; Thursday November 10, 2016, he survived yet another opposition-sponsored vote of no-confidence in Parliament.

Meanwhile, the news cycle is currently based on Thuli Madonsela’s final report as the Public Protector dealt with the burning issue of “state capture” – a type of systemic political corruption in which private interests significantly influence a state’s decision-making processes to their own advantage through unobvious channels, that may not be illegal.

In her sights with this report were the powerful Gupta family – an Indian-South African business family whose most notable members are the brothers Ajay, Atul and Rajesh “Tony” Gupta as well as Atul Gupta’s nephew Varun Gupta – who have become notorious for their allegedly close relationship with the president.

While every attack on the president is viewed by some as another nail in his coffin, his detractors would do well to remember that the president’s Zulu name is Gedleyihlekisa, which has been translated as ‘The one who smiles while grinding his enemies.’ President Zuma is not down and seems far from out.

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STOP PRESS: When ‘orders from above’ could kill the news

By Mwangi Githahu Cape Town, South Africa – One could argue that it is never an easy time to be a journalist; but there is less debate about whether in these times when the media is in a constant state of change, it is getting harder to hold on to a permanent job in the press.

When it isn’t the threat of digitisation taking jobs, it is what some people call rationalisation. Now in the study of psychology and logic, ‘rationalisation’ (also known as making excuses) is a defence mechanism in which controversial behaviour or feelings are justified and explained in a seemingly rational or logical manner to avoid the true explanation, and are made consciously tolerable — or even admirable.

In psychology and logic, ‘rationalisation’ (also known as making excuses) is a defence mechanism… In the corporate world, however, the same word means firing people

In the corporate world, however, the same word means, ‘The organisation of a business according to scientific principles of management in order to increase efficiency,’ in other words firing people.

According to a piece on the rawstory.com website, ‘Hundreds if not thousands of reporters lost their jobs’ in 2016. The article blamed the lack of a stable business model for the continued flailing of the newspaper and digital media industries.

According to the December 31, 2016 article, ‘Hundreds if not thousands of reporters lost their jobs. Mashable, The Associated Press, The Guardian, The Huffington Post and Fusion all laid off journalists en masse — as did IBT, Newsweek’s parent company.’

In SA, Prime Time News Is a Serious Revenue Challenge

Here in South Africa, it was no different, with the leading independent (i.e. non state-owned) TV broadcaster, e.tv and its sister TV news channel eNCA, continuing to let staff go even after a dramatic culling in April 2015.

In April 2016 e.tv dropped a bombshell when it announced that it would be lobbying the broadcasting regulator for permission to remove all news from prime time, saying it is not a revenue generator

In April 2016 e.tv dropped a bombshell when it announced that it would be lobbying the broadcasting regulator for permission to remove all news from prime time, saying that TV news on e.tv during prime time is not a revenue generator. A senior executive with the station’s holding company was quoted as saying at the time, ‘If e.tv is forced to broadcast news during prime time, it will cause serious revenue challenges.’

In the middle of last year, there were rumours of a merger of two newspapers – the Cape Times and Cape Argus – from the Independent Media stable; with these rumours came fears of more staff retrenchments in the group, which has effected a large number of retrenchments since it changed ownership a few years ago.

At around the same time, the beleaguered state-broadcaster, SABC, fired eight journalists who spoke out about controversial editorial policies such as a blackout on protest coverage ordered by the SABC’s then chief operating officer, Hlaudi Motsoeneng, but then was ordered to reinstate seven of them by the Labour Court.

Motsoeneng himself has since been found by the South African High Court to have been employed unlawfully to his high position at the state-broadcaster.

According to a News24.com article in August 2016, ‘The struggling Gupta-owned news channel ANN7 on DStv continues to fire journalists – first eight in June and then another five in July – for having participated in a public protest. The journalists were ordered to undergo disciplinary hearings for reasons like ‘wasting water – a precious resource.’

Kenya, No Country for Old Journalists

Meanwhile, every few years in Kenya, at least for as long as I’ve been involved in the press (since 1989) media houses go through a cycle of job cuts followed by new hires and expansion. The year 2016 appears to have been one of those cycles.

Over the year, Royal Media Services, which owns Radio Citizen, Citizen TV and a string of vernacular stations, reportedly retrenched 26 media workers.

While these waves of cuts and growth are often led by accountants and shareholders focused on the bottom line, often the organisation’s editorial management has the untidy job of choosing which members of staff to let go.

In 2015, the Standard Group, which owns the Standard newspapers and TV station KTN, was reported to have retrenched about 100 workers. According to one source, the blogger Cyprian Nyakundi, ‘The pruning of staff seems anchored in the regrouping of the “old Standard” employees and the departure of those poached, mainly from the Nation Media Group and Radio Africa’s Star newspaper.’

The same year also saw retrenchments at the Nation Media Group, which owns the Nation newspapers and the NTV television station among other major media investments in East Africa. In 2016, NMG ‘rationalised’ its broadcasting division, scaling down its traditional radio business in Kenya, Nation FM and QFM, and Rwanda’s KFM. All the main media houses have ‘culled’ their editorial staff and many ‘old-timers’ who were also quite highly paid, were let go – often on the argument that the salary of one person could be spread over five less experienced and cheaper journalists.

While these waves of cuts and growth are often led by accountants and shareholders focused on the bottom line, often the organisation’s editorial management has the untidy job of choosing which members of staff to let go.

Meanwhile, over at Radio Africa, which owns the Star newspaper, a string of radio stations and Kiss TV, there have also been rumours of impending staff layoffs driven by allegedly falling sales and growing competition from other media houses who have launched newspapers to rival the Star.

Industry newbies don’t know enough to ask the difficult questions and a news organisation that is cutting back on costs, will not provide the newbie with the tools to carry out proper research

When media houses face these situations in Kenya, at least, there is often the feeling in the ranks that management use the job cuts as an excuse to get rid of senior staff members, high earners and the odd journalist that they’ve been unable to sack for whatever reason. It often appears, especially to those on the receiving end of the retrenchment notice, to be a twist on the thinking behind the phrase used by a now former British Labour Party spin doctor, who wrote a memo describing September 11 as a ‘very good day’ to bury bad news.

As a result there is often an unhealthy animosity that occurs between those who do get let go and those whose job it was to dismiss them – golden handshakes notwithstanding. In fact, when these dismissals occur, there is inevitably a rumour of a witch-hunt accompanying them. Human nature being what it is, the witch-hunt rumours are not always off track.

In my experience, the people who are sacked are more often than not the more highly paid, long standing staffers and their replacements are often young, smart, less costly but untested and untried.

These new journalists may be aggressive and ambitious but they lack the background that helps to do the job and the people to teach them.

While we were all once newbies in the news business, what helped most of us along the way were the old-timers who held what is known as the institutional memory. Not only did they know about a particular media house’s history, they also knew other players in the industry and were often a wealth of news sources, contacts and tricks of the trade, which they generously shared with us newcomers.

While traditionally journalists were often said to be jacks of all trades, one of the problems with being green in the news business was, and remains, the lack of experience.

Experience helps you see the bigger picture and teaches you to scratch beneath the surface of a news story. For instance, recently in the Standard newspaper there was a bizarre report about a Zabron Mathenge who threw a party to ‘welcome home’ to Meru County his newly imported Hummer H3 limousine –reportedly worth Ksh40 million ($400,000).

As much as the report was a great example of conspicuous consumption by Kenya’s newly rich (Mr Mathenge is a former police constable turned businessman, the report informed us), a more experienced reporter might have done some sort of backgrounder on this man and should have interviewed him to find out why he would stage such an elaborate party complete with rented boda boda riders who were paid in cash at a ceremony carried out in a school yard. If the reporter hadn’t provided this sort of information, a sub-editor worth his salt should have asked for this detail to round out the story.

Industry newbies don’t know enough to ask the difficult questions and a news organisation that is cutting back on costs, will not provide the newbie with the tools to do the labour-intensive work of carrying out proper research before writing up a story.

In the end, the news reading public is short-changed and if this loss of value continues, the smart reader will vote with his wallet and eventually be followed by advertisers. In these hard times, no media house can afford to be without advertising. In the words of Philip Ochieng, my first editor-in- chief: ‘Every [media] owner and editor is keenly conscious that advertisements are the very lifeblood of his and other publications.’

Cheap Labour and the Sexing up of Stories

News organisations in Kenya and elsewhere, for that matter, are relying more and more on interns and other ‘cheap labour’ and, unable to cover traditional news stories and news features, are feeding consumers mainly basic information occasionally sexed up to read like an expose or investigative journalism even when a deeper reading shows that these stories fall short on several fronts.

So, for example, with the Meru Mr Moneybags story, questions about why he was splashing his cash about with a general election around the corner would have moved the story on from being just about conspicuous consumption to one about a possible wealthy rival for the local Governor, Senator or MP. Instead, if he now does run for office at the next election, few readers will make the connection and even fewer will be aware of how he amassed his fortune.

As a result, the reading and voting public will be unable to make a properly informed choice at the ballot box if he runs for office, as he most probably will. Let’s face it, in Kenya, hardly anybody suddenly makes a big deal of their wealth, dishing out cash and seeking publicity, unless they are running for office.

Another problem is that partly for the reasons cited above, many Kenyans news outlets have what a Freedom House report on the country’s media referred to as ‘unstable revenue models.’ The report also suggests that ‘low pay leads some journalists — particularly those outside urban areas — to accept compensation from the entities that they cover,’ a polite way of saying this encourages corrupt journalists or ‘presstitutes’ as they are known in India.

When journalists are compromised, or stop asking questions, they are leaving the reading public at the mercy of people who do nothing but bend and hide the truth

Corrupt journalists who take money from news sources to twist the news in a certain way or to look away from certain news stories are a sore topic in Kenyan newsrooms, as while there is often speculation about who is and who isn’t compromised and how high up in the organisation it goes, nobody seems to look very hard for evidence and certainly it is hardly ever exposed except on the odd occasion that a Kamlesh Pattni type produces a list of journalists whom he ‘assisted financially’ or a land scam such as the Masongaleni Settlement Scheme of the early 1990s meant for squatters in Ukambani is exposed with a number of journalists popping up as beneficiaries. When journalists are compromised, or stop asking questions, they are leaving the reading public at the mercy of people who do nothing but bend and hide the truth.

In the final analysis, there needs to be a better way to cut costs, make profits and still keep experience in the media while encouraging new blood. Media owners just need to get creative and find it.

Published by the good folks at The Elephant.

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