Has the Media Crucified the Deputy Chief Justice?

By Daniel Saenyi

The work of the media in the social order is to entertain, provide surveillance and predominantly to inform us on all current affairs. As a Journalist the first lesson you learn is that media is a lens for the society and not a mirror because it highlights what is hidden from society. In our current affairs the Kenyan Media seem to be over performing in the Nancy Barasa scandal. The media seem to have crucified Nancy Barasa even before her conviction.

D.C.J Nancy Barasa

The subject has been the Agenda of the day for most people as is the role of the media to make it so. The general public has also been led to victimize her with the few from her home district standing up for her against all odds. It has been made up to be a combat between the rich and the poor or David and Goliath.

When did people start getting suspended for pinching someone’s nose? Pulling out a gun is just tittle-tattle and there is no proof of its existence? We all know Nancy Barasa has some anger issues since way back, but is she to be condemned based on past behavior.

I don’t want to seem callous or anything but based on my judgment, the media just helped Mrs. Rebecca Kerubo to blow these way out of proportion. With her being the victim and claiming the entire psychological and emotional trauma, it all gives us one side of the story. What about Nancy Barasa upset, she has been suspended pending an investigation thanks to the persistent of the Media on placing pressure on the government officials. Let’s forget not all the Kenyans pointing accusing fingers at her for abusing her power, which begs the question, in what way?

They say article 72 of the constitution necessitates for all public officials to behave accordingly wherever or whenever, but in reality, if the situation involved some small time official, we wouldn’t even know that such an article exists in the constitution.

We always advocate for transparency and fair trial but in this case I think DCJ Barasa got a media blackout hence the scale falling heavy on her side of the story.

Mrs. Rebecca Kerubo

If we as the Kenyan media paint our society like so, we should not complain when International media does the same. They always tend to focus on the negative side of Africa and don’t care to do much research to procure actualities, like in the recent case where some Canadian Radio personality said the Kenyan currency is goats and saying Gaddafi was like the Devil incarnate when he actually cared about his people’s needs.

She is the first female in Kenya with such a high position in the judicial system but it seems she is also the one to take it for a test drive first with the imminent investigation. With her being on the firing range, guilt is the only thing the media should feel as she is on the verge of losing her job.

The professional media is not the only one to blame for this but Kenyans and the social media as well. We have been feeding on the situation like predators by posting photo shopped pictures on Facebook, twitter ‘and so forth spiraling this into a comic strip.

In this profession, bad news is always good news, but as media personalities where does self-regulation and ethical standards come in? Are we to abolish people’s lives and careers for the sake of getting a larger audience or readership for our articles?