Media rules flawed but it’s not apocalypse
By Levi Obonyo, August 1, 2025Every profession has a code of conduct that guides the way members carry out their activities. Journalists in Kenya are no exception. Stacked at the back of the Media Act and headlined Schedule II, the code has been in place for more than a decade.
For some time, many have observed shortcomings in this code, considering the evolving changes in the profession due to shifting practice circumstances and the arrival of new technology.
When the code was initially created, the media industry was thriving and probably among the top 10 in generating profit for shareholders. That is no longer true in many cases. Media companies are shrinking, laying off staff, and generative artificial intelligence is now entering the scene, replacing certain newsroom practices. The list of advocates for press freedom is shrinking by the day.
Ethics is generally not clear-cut, and apart from academic purposes, people rarely pick up a book to consult what is right or wrong. It is not like a dictionary where one checks the spelling of a word. Ethics are embedded in people’s hearts, the gut feeling that the action about to be taken is either right or wrong.
It may be because of this that many journalists rarely engage in the process of developing a new set of guidelines to guide their practice. Or it could simply be that many journalists, as literate as they are expected to be, hardly have time to read.
The process of developing a code of this kind is lengthy and detailed. It involves the usual meetings to bring key stakeholders together, including stakeholder meetings and public consultations, among others. Generally, many Kenyan professionals and journalists tend to avoid the process, perhaps hoping that someone else will take responsibility for it.
Indeed, someone often enters, and that person may not have the best intentions for the outcome, especially regarding journalists. The nature of journalists is to wait, and once the code is passed, they start raising concerns when it is already too late.
That appears to be our current situation. A new code of conduct for journalists in Kenya has been implemented, setting a high standard for fact verification that could become a bottleneck to journalism’s core functions.
The effort to eliminate quacks – those pretenders to the profession – might not succeed. Quacks, by their very nature, are not part of the mainstream, and the code of ethics does not bind them. They intentionally aim to undermine the system, caring only that it functions so they can continue to exploit it. It is like rats setting a trap for cockroaches, only to trap themselves.
Journalists are now recognising some flaws in the code, but only after the damage has been done. However, those eager to raise standards in the profession, mainly to protect their own interests against the very essence of journalism, have already achieved their aim. Kenya is probably the only country where the code of conduct for professionals has the force of law, meaning those who operate outside it can be prosecuted. In other jurisdictions, these matters are left to conscience.
One would hope that lessons have been learned. Those who have a stake in the outcome should engage with the process from the outset and see it through. Now that the code is in place, journalists have little choice but to abide by it. But even more critically, law enforcers should protect journalism’s societal role by showing leniency on clauses that could hinder press freedom when strictly enforced.
The writer is the Dean of Daystar University’s School of Communication