MEDIA AND POLITICS ; WHY MEDIA CANNOT BE NON-PARTISAN?

 If you are out there and you are expecting media , both electronic and print to be NON-PARTISAN , then you are damn wrong. That will never happen in modern capitalist States. However much we may insinuate that , media especially on matters politics shouldn't take sides , it is just embracing false consciousness. It won't happen. When Edmund Burke described the embryonic media of the late 18th century as the 'Fourth Estate'(the first three being the Executive , Legislature and Judiciary arms of the government) , he was acknowledging their importance to the health of liberal democracy. The media represented an independent source of knowledge not only informing people about politics, but also protecting them from the abuses of power.

When I saw Deputy President William Ruto communication team led by former Citizen TV Journalist Hussein Mohammed complaining of a section of media stations , both print and electronic of being biased towards William Ruto , I was just laughing off. Media abs especially in capitalistic States is an appendage of thr ruling political elites. Ruto himself knows it. The owners of this media stations are also the owners of capital. They wield strong economic influence which in turn makes them a cog on shaping the politics of the State. Most of them either collude with influencial people in thr government or in the opposition whocj is ugling to overthrow the sitting Government through a democratic means , that is , through the ballot.

Famed linguist and anarchist Philosopher Noam Chomsky took his time to study the relationship between politics and media. In his book , Manufactured Consent : The political economy of the mass media , he opined that , the mass media sells us the idea that we have political agency. Fallacy. The media also tells us that , its " primary function" is to mobilize support for the special interests that dominate the government and the private sector. The media evolves around the mechanisms of effective and powerful ideological Institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function. Nowadays, it works very well in this age of Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp , Facebook as well as in the mainstream media. Those mechanisms largely divide in what Chomsky reffered to as the five filters. They are:

1. Media Ownership: The endgame of all the mass media organisations is profit. It is in their interest to push for whatever guarantees that profit. To make the abnormal profits , notable media houses in Kenya are running lucrative betting adverts that are aimed at siphoning more cash from the citizens. In Mt Kenya region , almost all the vernacular radio stations run this betting shows. This has made this stations to negate from their core functions of informing, entertaining and educating. The craze for making quick and abnormal cash is what occupies the biggest portion of their mind. 

2. Media Elite: Journalism cannot be a check on power, because the very system encourages complicity. Governments , corporations and big Institutions know how to influence the media. They feed it scoops and interviews with supposed experts. They make themselves crucial to the process of Journalism. If you want to challenge POWER , you will be pushed to the periphery. You won't be getting in. You will have lost your access. The media houses dictates what will be aired and what won't be aired to the public especially on political matters. They also censor the amount of airtime political parties campaign rally will get or not. It is the editorial team that formulates the policies its staff will follow. So , if you just air your own political thoughts contrary to that of the owners , you automatically get fired of undergo severe disciplinary actions.

4. Flack: A flack is a person who is responsible for representing an organisation when talking to or writing for newspaper , television etc. When the story is inconvenient for the powers that be ,you will see the flack machine in action , discrediting sources, trashing stories and diverting the conversation. That issue of diverting conversation especially when it is hosting a political debate and one of the guest political pundit descent on the establishment in a very negative way. 

5. The common Enemy:  To manufacture consent , you need an enemy , a target for that matter. Either that could be communists , terrorists , immigrants , LGBTQ , fascists , political Coalition Y etc . This is aimed at swaying the public opinion in your favor. This is the point whocj made Ruto's team to come out gun blazing. They cite Royal media and Mediamax Radio and Television stations have singled out Kenya Kwanza Alliance as it common Enemy infavour of Azimio la Umoja one Kenya Alliance coalition party.

In a nutshell , even in the liberal democracies like in US and UK , the mass media has never been non partisan. During the 2020 US PRESIDENTIAL Elections, Fox News was shooting for Republican party and CNN was shooting for Democrat party. Now tell me , if this is a State which is enjoying 200 years of Democracy , whsy about Kenya?