Press risks sacrificing its neutrality

As a consequence, news organisations do not end up with simplified stories but simplistic stories that not only misrepresent issues but also misinform audiences.

The lack of nuance in the reporting of the constitutional making process in Kenya and more particularly the reported disagreements on the draft constitution has been distinctly brazen.

A rather unsophisticated dissection has been created between the two mainstream parties PNU and ODM and between those in favour of an Executive President on the one side and on the other those in favour of an Executive Prime Minister and a so-called Ceremonial President.

The contending positions however make no such simplistic distinction.

While it is true that the main points of contention revolve around the sharing of Executive power, the argument is not as simple as is being framed.

Indeed, framing the debate as though this constriction should be a contest between PNU and ODM is wrong even if these are the two most dominant and visible political players. Are other Kenyans irrelevant in this debate?

Further, the two ‘opposing’ groups are almost without exception routinely reported as being at ‘war’, politicians said to be ‘digging in’, ‘fallouts imminent’, and such other language that communicates a polarisation that may in fact exist but is barely interrogated.

Such crass simplification of a complex story may make good headlines but it does not help inform the public.

By all means let stories be unambiguous but equally offer some detail.

What really is the basis for this polarisation?

Does it not in fact reside outside of this process?

True, the details of the debate are complex and a newspaper can only carry so much.

But that is why we have editorials, news features and opinion writers.

These should be used to unpack what is obviously a difficult and complex story.

Instead, very often, we read hand-picked opinion pieces merely used to reinforce particular positions that very often remain unsubstantiated.