Deputy President William Ruto-led Kenya Kwanza Coalition has witnessed an increase in media coverage since complaints were raised over media bias, the latest report by the Media Council of Kenya (MCK) has shown.
DP Ruto had earlier this month accused the media of favoring his competitors in the Azimio la Umoja One Kenya Coalition.
“We want to request our friend in the fourth estate, to be fair. So far, we have been treated unfairly by some media houses. We have raised these concerns through you, chair. We ask for a fair-level playground,” Ruto said after he was cleared by IEBC to vie for the presidency.
According to the MCK report that analyses media coverage of the 2022 general election campaign between April and early June 2022, of the 24,744 mentions of the presidential candidates on media, Azimio’s Raila Odinga had 58.709 percent, compared to DP Ruto’s 36.619 percent.
Jimmy Wanjigi had 2.498 percent of the mentions, with George Wajackoya and Ekuru Aukot, both getting above 0.5 perfect.
But after the complaint, the numbers have changed in favor of DP Ruto, with in some cases, especially Radio, Kenya Kwanza getting more coverage than Azimio.
Odinga had 16,928.13 columns of coverage on print, 125,965 seconds on radio, and 249,220 seconds on TV after the complaint compared to DP Ruto’s 13,711.26 columns (print), 87,601 seconds on radio, and 233,502 TV seconds.
“Overall, Raila still leads in media space consumption,” notes the report that was officially launched by MCK Chief Executive Officer David Omwoyo in Eldoret town on Friday, June 24, 2022.
The report also shows that Radio remains the biggest dispenser of political news with a 62 percent coverage.
This is attributed to the existence of several national and community radio stations compared to TV and print.
Television comes second at 27 percent, a situation attributed to wide penetration and frequency distribution, while print is rated third at 11 percent.
The Media Council of Kenya however hailed the media for better reporting on hate speech compared to 2017.
“Since April, the number of breaches have gone down tremendously,” noted the MCK in their report, even as they challenged candidates to package their issues competitively, as opposed to “the noise being experienced in rallies.”