Journalists and the rule of law

Abstract

J ournalism is not so young a profession in this country as sometimes it does appear. Journalism in Kenya is probably as old as the history of the nation itself and precedes many of the professions in the country. Indeed there is a rich history of the media in the country. What has not kept pace with the development of the field is the equivalent development of resources to enable the field to be more effective. For instance, it was not until after independence, with the establishment of the Kenya Institute of Mass Communication that training of journalists started in Kenya in earnest. Even then, that training was terminated at the diploma level meaning that thought was still focused on producing mid-level industry personnel. It was a decade later when further training beyond the diploma qualification was offered in Kenya. But even more challenging for the field is that while the training was being offered there was never a concurrent development of resources to facilitate the training and adapt it to the Kenyan context. Technical training was a turn key technology with buttons being pointed to trainees who often only knew how to switch on and off the equipment they operated. But even more serious was the lack of efforts by those in the field to contextualize training by producing training material relevant to the nation’s needs. Textbooks were still imported with examples used in class remaining largely incidents that took place in far flu