Kenya Broadcasting Company (KBC) has been allowed as the only local media station to cover president-elect William Ruto’s inauguration ceremony set to take place tomorrow.
Other local channels including Citizen TV, NTV, KTN, K24, among others will depend on a live feed that will stream the event dubbed “Kenya Presidential Inauguration” in preparation for the event tomorrow.
“It must operate differently, otherwise nobody is going to advertise, we must run KBC as a commercial entity, it must make money, it must run itself we cannot continue to fund KBC from public coffers,” Ruto stated
He revealed that KBC lost its credibility as soon as it became a mouthpiece for anyone in government.
“The problem of KBC in the past is that it became a mouthpiece of whoever was in government and it lost credibility, it must keep to being objective, it must keep being balanced, it cannot be a place where they report the President from morning to evening,” Ruto said.
The step of KBC being the only media station to be accredited rights to cover the swearing in ceremony left other media stations in a heated debate.
During the campaigns before the August 9 general elections, Ruto and his Kenya Kwanza camp accused the media of being biased.
They claimed that their political rival Raila Odinga of the Azimio One Kenya alliance was given more time to air than Ruto.
David Omwoyo, Chief Executive Officer of the Media Council of Kenya (MCK) argues that other national broadcasters example Europe, America and a few in Africa are doing well.
“In Europe and America, national broadcasters are performing really well, including the BBC, VOA and DW. In Africa, we had South African Broadcasting Corporation – SABC, which even had offices in Nairobi,” Omwoyo said.
Barrack Muluka, a communication consultant said that KBC performed its role well during the election period compared to private broadcasters as it was not biased.