Want the media to sing your praises? Here is how the Devil would do it

After Parliament passed the Kenya Information and Communication Bill last week, you could hear the cries of pain as far away as in Lagos and Alexandria — in a manner of speaking, that is.

The Bill was slated as the most violent attack on Press freedom in Kenya since independence. The $11,710 for individual journalists, is the highest such fine that a media tribunal anywhere in Africa can impose.

Likewise the $234,192 penalty against a media house that violated several provisions of the new Bill or the Code of Conduct for the Practice of Journalism, is again among the highest a tribunal can hand out in Africa. The law also requires that at least 45 per cent of the broadcast programmes be local.

Let us be honest. The problem with media censorship is not the fact that there is censorship. It is mostly to do with HOW it is done.

If a journalist chooses of his or her own volition not publish a corruption story about a minister, that is fine because he has exercised his free will and conscience. If he doesn’t publish it because a government authority or a law prevents him doing so, that is repression and immoral.

I am reminded of the lyrics to that wonderful Luther Vandross song “Dance with my father”: “When I and my mother would disagree, To get my way, I would run from her to him [father] He’d make me laugh just to comfort me, Then finally make me do just what my mama said.”

In other words, the father would get him to happily do exactly what his mother had asked him and he had refused. The difference is that his father would first be nice to him.

That is why, as any good Christian will tell you, the Devil is very successful. He makes terrible things look nice. So how would the Devil have handled the Kenya Information and Communication Bill, and avoided a backlash?

1. To start with, that $11,710 for individual journalists and $234,192 for allegedly errant media houses. Clearly it is meant as a deterrent against “irresponsible” reporting, but has become a uniting point of opposition to the Bill.

The Devil would have provided that the fine would be imposed only on the fourth time a journalist or media breached the code. Most people strongly believe in punishment for repeat offenders. And many journalists would have thought such a provision reasonable.

2. On the 45 per cent local content rule, again the mistake was to make failure to meet it a punishable offence. Local production is so expensive to meet that local content quota, most radio and TV stations could run bankrupt.

The easiest way to get that would have been to offer incentives. Require stations to have 25 per cent local content, and for every other 5 per cent they add on, the business gets a 5 per cent tax waiver.

A whole new dynamic in the industry, and partnerships with independent local content producers would be unleashed that would transform the Kenya television scene.

3. The recent VAT changes in Kenya brought newsprint (and other printed material) in the vatable bracket. The result was in increase in cover prices of newspapers, and fiddling with advertising rate cards. This is what is called a “knowledge” tax, and is generally not considered enlightened.

A more politically savvy approach would have been to exempt newsprint. However, to get the exemption, publishers would have to sign a charter of “good use” with the authorities.

For newspapers, that “good use” would be responsible reporting, avoiding propaganda, hate speech and so on. The exemption would be renewed every two years, and if a newspaper has not offended, upon renewal it would get “bonus” points.

Such bonus points could, for example, allow a publisher to get a rebate on the cost of transporting newspapers to the market because that is a “public good”.

These are just a few of the carrots that will get any government fair coverage. There is nothing harsh media legislation will get for a government that just the right dose of sweetness won’t. Time for the politicians to listen to Luther Vandross.