The Kenya Media Council has declined a request from editors to stop celebrities taking up jobs as media presenters, writes Dennis Itumbi for journalism.co.za.
According to minutes of a meeting between editors and the council obtained by journalism.co.za, editors raised concerns about the trend, saying it compromised the standards of journalism. They asked the regulator to act on the matter.
However, Ken Nyakundi, the chair of the councils complaints commission, said the media houses not shift responsibility.
"It is different media houses that must develop and implement media policies and ethics to be followed by all journalists in that particular media house," Naykundi told the senior editors drawn from all media houses.
However, the regulator disclosed that efforts were being made to stop mushrooming "rooftop journalism training schools".
Accreditation and Training Committee Chairman Hiram Mucheke said they were in the process of identifying "ways to set a minimum requirement entry point for middle level colleges providing journalism as a course to help eliminate quack journalists and mushrooming of colleges that operate without tools of journalism."
For their part, the editors challenged the regulator to table and publicize results of all complaints they had received instead of silently pledging action and little result, " the council has been boasting that they have received numerous complaints and dealt with them, yet it has never been in the limelight and cannot be substantiated, the editors therefore challenge the council to publicize its activities and show what it is doing."
Although held behind closed doors, the meeting was a first step towards visible regulation of the media.
