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Conversations around media and politics are as controversial as the relationship between the media and politics. Political power is privileged and, often, its wielders forget that it is transient.

In fact, the limitation of the perpetuity of political power is the hallmark of a good democracy.
Studies have shown that even though the media and political class often have an adversarial relationship, the two cannot disengage from the symbiotic relationship that is critical for the sustainability of both.

Space and airtime in the media are traded for public interest content from the political class and to a large extent, the media privileges political content because it guarantees an interested audience. Politicians, given what they do – control of allocation and distribution of public resources – are fodder for public consumption.

But they need the media more because as the principal purveyors of information, they afford the politicians the platform to reach voters.

Even with the powers that politicians wield, the power the media leverages is immense. The media can fashion the criteria that the public uses to evaluate government.

Interestingly, when regimes target specific media organisations, they only succeed in making the targeted media outlets the most favoured and probably trusted by the public.

This understanding puts Cabinet Secretary Moses Kuria and generally the government’s failure to tap on the symbiotic relationship with the media in perspective.

You see, the media has the social contract with the citizenry and this contract calls for the media to report to them all that is of public interest. The government, on the other hand, cannot hide anything that it is doing that is not in the interest of the people who gave them power.

As controllers of public resources and the most intent political formation that seeks to retain power in 2027, this regime has the wherewithal to leverage coverage by the media.

All they need to do is deliver on the promises to the hustlers and the media will have nothing but the delivery stories to purvey to the public.

Gone are the days when the media was predominantly preoccupied with stories of a man biting a dog. Progress stories of how those in positions of authority and institutions are changing society for the better are privileged by the media just like stories that hold those in power accountable.

Instead of the reckless affront on the media, someone ought to inform the establishment that they have a lot that should be traded for the space in the media which they are misusing by attacking them.

For instance, the Council of Governors is working with the Ministry of Health in addressing heath financing and access to Universal Health something that I would say folks in my native Migori are more interested in than what CS Kuria says about the media.

This initiative by the Governor Anne Waiguru-led CoG has seen the county governments deploy 100,000 Community Health Promoters all over the country with plans to deploy the second cohort in the beginning of July 2023.

Covid-19 ushered in the stark reality of the need for a strong community health care system and much of what our governors are doing to plug in on the initiative by the CoG is in the interest of the public and it would be great to see how the media loops in the public.

Indeed strengthening of human resource framework for heath and how counties are working with the ministry and CoG to benefit the citizens are conversations worth having.
— The writer is a PhD candidate in political communication