Contemporary Threats: Media Freedom

Democratic rhetoric has unilaterally blamed absence of media freedom to government interference characteristic of African and oriental governments’ spewing vitriol that has determined discourse around media freedom.

However new threats to media freedom are in the offing as democracy spreads across the world.

I have come to like the BBC news channel in recent times due to its informative programming especially the coverage on Africa and the world as a whole. There was a time when we had our own Kenya Broadcasting Corporation. During the Moi regime and all the authoritarian use of the media to benefit myopic government ends, KBC lost all credibility as a media corporation and was more of a government mouthpiece akin to what we have as the government spokesman today.

Rightly it came under criticism and in an information age where there is a deluge of alternative media all and sundry migrated from KBC. It has since been plagued with losses, lagging behind and anecdotal affiliation to compromised media.

Why it did not transform into a respectable government funded media corporation like the BBC should be thought through if we believe in free press.

I say this because I believe the new threat to press freedom is over-commercialization, capital monopolies and political interest infringement.

When we opted away from government media we have since fallen to the corporate class who like the authoritarian governments driven by need to yoke people in propaganda, are driven by narrow minded self interest in profit. This has watered down journalism into sensational crowd pulling shenanigans mostly influenced by bigoted owner interests like the Ruppert Murdoch’s News of the world.  This is perhaps the biggest threat to journalism presently.

Plus with the rise of monopolies journalists are forced to play along editorial policies, some of which they do not even believe in. It closes out small entrants just like the autocratic bottlenecks used to.

To protect press freedom at this day and age we must look beyond the traditional threats into contemporary ones that threaten substance and importance of the fourth estate. We might have to go back to the traditional foe, the government corporation as a an alternative that is not driven by the myopia of profit but capable of churning out worthwhile journalism like the BBC and still leave the space open for alternative media.