How the media can play a more critical role in the East African Political Federation

JUST over two weeks ago, the Fifth East African Community (EAC) Media Summit took place in Kigali at a time when there is euphoria for East Africa’s political integration. The Summit was opened by President Paul Kagame who challenged the media to play a more critical role in East Africa’s integration. One thing that came out of the Summit was that the media has a heavy responsibility to disseminate news and information as well as taking a deliberate effort to educate the people of this region on issues of integration.The media, as it has been pointed out, plays an important role and has the responsibility of protecting core national values and interests. Beyond protecting and orchestrating national values through information and education, the media must be proactive in informing our people about issues of integration. The reasons that led to the collapse of the East African Community (EAC) way back in 1977 have not adequately been addressed. There still exists suspicion and lack of trust among member states on issues such as the ongoing discussions on Monetary Union and others. For instance, although there are only three months to go for the five EAC member states to have one economic bloc, the member states belong to different economic blocs. While Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda are members of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), Tanzania, on the other hand, belongs to Southern Africa Development Community (SADC).Beyond these differences, however, the mood in the region, at least judging from the free movement of people, goods and services, across common borders, is that of supporting a political integration.While the East African people are eager to finalise the integration process, there are issues that must first be resolved. Take the example of infrastructure. As a region, we are doing poorly in air, road and water transportation, to put it mildly. Air transport has by and large remained an exclusive preserve for a few members of our political and elite class. The ordinary “Mwanainchi”, whose life-line revolves around surviving on less than one USD a day, remains critically disadvantaged. Our roads are in a sorry state. And when rains do come, they rein havoc, rendering them impassable. Our lakes and rivers have fewer and less reliable boats and ships. We have witnessed repeated tragedies of capsizing boats and ferries on our lakes, some of which are beginning to show signs of vanishing owing to an onslaught of environmental degradation.The significance of infrastructure can not be divorced from peace and security in our region. While the sustainability of peace and security is a foregone conclusion, our region cannot prosper without credible infrastructure in place. We need, for instance, to liberalize our skies so that the bigger airlines can begin to feel the heat of competition from the smaller airlines. We need a kind of Easy jet in which travelers can pay as little as the equivalent of 50 USD to fly from Kigali to Nairobi or Dar- Es- Salaam to Nairobi or anywhere within the region.Such affordable air fares, coupled with a well managed road and water transport system, will bring more of our people together and deepen prospects for a political federation in the near future. That journalists are expected to give a voice to the voiceless and provide constructive criticism to the establishment through holding of all those in public office accountable is not a matter for debate. Being a public watchdog cannot be carried out effectively with the existing flaws that characterise this important profession. A number of media watchdog commissions in Africa in their reports have demonstrated ethical lapses and unprofessional conduct on the part of journalists. Cases of journalists who take bribes from news sources have proved to be a defiant and certainly an intractable problem. Journalism as a profession requires someone to have passion and strong commitment to defending society against injustice. That requires not just training per se, but also courage to stand up for the truth.We are in an era where journalists are increasingly challenged to remain relevant at a time when the Internet has become a source of news. There has been and actually there is a power shift going on today in the media industry. From the producers of media to the people hitherto known as the audience, these people are no longer an audience. This factor alone has critically led to loss of sovereignty in the media. There is no longer exclusivity of control of news on the part of journalists. What journalists say or write about can no longer be the law. Owing to this power shift and due to the said loss of sovereignty, a lot of pressure is being put on the mainstream journalism’s key ideas – the ideas and principles that make it what it is.As African journalists reflect on the challenges facing them at this point in time, they could begin to focus on how they can survive and remain relevant in the increasingly shared media space, especially in the context of East African integration.

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How the media can play a more critical role in the East African Political Federation