CORRUPTION AND JOURNALISTS:

Journalists should Resist Bribes to maintain their Trust Among the Masses

By Maritim Evans

The press has been an epitome of democracy, a voice of the voiceless and a front-runner in fight against corruption in many countries, but this is not the case in Kenya.

The people who were supposed to guard Wananchi against corrupt individuals are the one receiving bribes to kill corruption allegation stories!

Swaleh Mdoe: He is among ten journalists who were suspended for ten days pending investigation on corruption allegations. PHOTO COURTESY

Where is the role of the press in this case? The people who have been baptized and given a honorable name, the members of the fourth estate, are busy receiving bribes to kill negative stories!

It was so unfortunate for about ten journalists including top news anchors and news editor to be suspended for ten days pending investigations on corruption allegations.

The image they portrayed is atrocious and the media fraternity in the country has condemned the allegations, but who knows what is happening in the newsrooms? How many negative stories that have been spiked that Wananchi do not know?

People trust journalists more than anyone else. You hear people saying I heard such and such over the radio, I read that in the newspaper or I watched that on television. This portrays the level of trust common citizens have on the media houses. They take everything they heard from the media as the gospel truth.

Journalists are among the people who are highly paid across the world. This was encouraged to reduce the issue of corruption, but despite the high pay they receive, they have not been able to do their work independently.

They assume their code of ethics and do their work as if there is no professional rule of ethics they are supposed to follow. They do their journalistic works just like business that is mainly aimed at making profits.

It goes without any say that journalists working for small media houses attract little attention from bigwigs. This means that if a certain titan wants to kill a story, the best way to do is to bribe journalists working for big media houses, so that if a story is surfaced anyway in small media houses it will not have any impact at all since naturally small media houses command small number of audience.

Journalism should be made a profession. This means that it should meet all the requirements that a profession should have including taking an oath. This may be used in a court of law to prosecute errant journalists.