KENYAN MEDIA EDITORS IN CLANDESTINE PRE-XMAS VISIT TO STATE HOUSE
By Phil W
As majority Kenyans face up to one of the most economically difficult festive seasons in recent history, in charasteric style, top editors from all select media houses are in State House this morning enjoying a sumptuous breakfast at the expense of tax payers whom they long abandoned as public watchdogs.
Sources reveal secret invitations to visit State House for clandestine breakfast and “consultations with government” were urgently sent out last night urging each invitee to drop any work and honour the President’s summon.
In July 2013, the President and his Deputy hosted media editors under the guise of outlining his government’s communication policy and engagement with media.
The meeting turned out to be an unprecedented bonding session between the fourth estate and a repressive regime that has since passed laws to restrict media freedom and systematically centralized all government advertising as a tactic of blackmail. A Nation Media editor was later sacked following state pressure for writing a scathing editorial op-ed against the Jubilee administration.
A number of journalists have been subjected physical harm while bloggers have been hunted down and arrested under flimsy grounds.
Today’s secret meeting comes amidst increased public scrutiny on state largesse and corruption plus opposition pressure on a government that has largely failed to fulfill it’s pre-election pledges.
