Lighters up…

to all journalists who have laid down their lives,

…to Naggai, a journalist to his last breath.

He stared at it, at death with his camera. Kenji Nagai, a 50 year old Japanese photographer was among those killed during a protest in Yagon, Myanmar. He continued to record images even when the police charged and fired at the protestors, as he lay dying.

The inhumanity and the injustice in it, is not legendary of the Japanese government.

That he died a brave journalist is honorary worthy to be celebrated.

Pictures of Naggai as he tried to take pictures before he died.

Filed under: Media

Who blunted the Watchdogs teeth?

Just how innocent is the Kenyan media in the face of its publics? How much should we discern what we read and see? How different is the state from the press, when they survive in some sort of symbiosis? The government maneuvers the media to lay itself in good light; the media exposes the government and puts in information in a more shocking way to sell more newspapers. We are careful to whisper behind closed doors that the politics that brews in Kenyan newsrooms are not that disparate from those in bunge.

Just like the government, the press has been accused of corruption, malice and has played a big part of what Kenya is or is not today.

With the hands that puppeteers our media transcending ordinary, the press has many a times been culpable of not devoting much focus on the poor man’s plight. By doing so, the media: 1) denies a people a voice that would instigate change in governments or incite donors to assist towards sustained development; 2) the media might also ignite a sense isolation and hopelessness that many a times precedes violence.

Nonetheless, media ought to feel indebted to the poor man’s perpetual trust in what they hear on radio and see splattered as headlines. In developing countries, more people trust the media than their governments; this is according to a ten-country opinion poll for the BBC, Reuters, and The Media Center. For instance, people in the US have a 67% trust on their governance against the media, unlike developing countries like Nigeria where they trust the media 88% versus 34% on the government.

Filed under: Media