By Dickens Wasonga reporting from Coast.
The Kenya Correspondents Association (KCA) has launched a media training and mentorship project for journalists based in the Coast Region of Kenya to enhance issue focused, in-depth and fair reporting of issues affecting the region.
The initiative is meant to build the capacity and sharpen the skills of journalists based in the region to adopt a more investigative and analytical approach to reporting about a number of key issues that have lately dominated the media and national attention from the region.
The Coast Region, which has enjoyed peace as a tourist hub, has in the recent past witnessed flare-up of conflicts, some between communities over land and pasture, mostly in Tana River Delta and between the state and the loyalists supporting a militant secessionist group calling itself Mombasa Republican Council (MRC).
The group has taken up the case of advocacy over the claims of historical marginalization of the region and the land problems to new levels, often sparking off violent confrontation with security personnel that have been cracking on its supporters.
The MRC saga remains clouded in sensational media reports with reports that some of the group’s leaders have been involved in oath taking, calls for boycott of registration of voters, and attempts at secession from Kenya based on the per-independence ties with the Sultan of Zanzibar who for centuries ruled a 10 mile strip of the Kenyan coast.
In both the Tana River and MRC cases, hundreds of people have been killed, property destroyed and scores of people displaced.
Media reporting of these issues has been based on the voices of a few dominant voices including government officials, political and religious leaders and a few leaders of the MRC.
The KCA initiative seeks to enhance the capacity of journalists to do more investigation into some of these issues and offer opportunity to more diverse voices to speak out on the issues, particularly the social, economic and the political impact of the conflicts on the ordinary people, particularly the women, children and the elderly and on the tourist based economy of the region.
There have also been claims of biased, inaccurate and sensational media coverage that has led to a picture of the Coast Region being unsafe for investors and tourists and looming possibilities of religious, ethnic and other sectarian conflicts ahead of the March 2013 General Elections.
The project, which is supported by the Kenya Transitional Initiative (KTI)/United States Agency for International Development (USAID), was formally launched at a Stakeholders Planning Meeting in Mombasa on Friday last week at event which brought together journalists and representative of local stakeholder groups.
“ We hope to enhance a sustained in-depth and a more responsible media coverage of the key issues in the region by offering space to more voices and focusing on the benefits inherent in the timely and faithful implementation of the new constitution which promises solutions to some of these problems,” said Oloo Janak, KCA Chairman during the launch.
Under the project, 20 journalists drawn from different media channels based in the Coast Region will be taken through a short intense training and there-after, months of mentorship to build the requisite skills on the job.
The Project will be implemented through various strategies and stages and will involve active and regular media engagement with leaders and other stakeholders in the region aimed at generating credible, fair and reform oriented media reports.
END.