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Summary on the Cyber Dialogues held on 28th September 2007 |
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The Media Diversity Centre played host to a journalists’ training workshop in Kisumu for 30 correspondents and journalists from western Kenya. They shared their views on the dynamics of reporting political issues in an election period. The General Elections are scheduled for December 2007.
The journalists admitted to facing a number of challenges with coverage of political issues and they consistently identified with the challenges the faced in the area of objectivity versus subjectivity.
According to the workshop moderator, Solomon Omondi, it is clear that journalists carry a lot of baggage in terms of their perceptions towards issues. An illustrative example is the recent debate around affirmative action and the 50 parliamentary seats for women: “Most male journalists disagreed on the issues of affirmative action for women.”
“In a country where the media is supposed to educate the public and offer alternative views on development, why is the gender stereotype still persistent among the journalists?” This question was posed by Rosemary Okello.
Another issue that was raised at the workshop was the obvious biases in coverage where participants admitted that they tended to lean towards giving coverage to their own members of parliament as opposed to reporting events and personalities objectively.
According to Sara Nics, an AWC Feature Service participant at workshop, journalists admitted to the lack of objectivity in reporting and for a need for more fair and balanced coverage: “We had a good discussion about how to avoid bias in our reporting, talking about areas of particular concern, such as using implicating language, bias in choice of interview subject and interview styles,” she says. |
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