Full multimedia story at https://theugandaagus.wordpress.com/2018/06/22/brown-envelope-journalism-leaves-kenya-in-reverse-gear/

Sources buy off journalists with money in brown envelopes

Brown envelopes may kill or promotes stories. This situation has badly affected reporting and the independence of the media, Doreen Joy Biira states.

  In Kenya just like many other Sub Saharan African countries, the current working conditions of journalists represent a major impediment to journalist’s capacity to perform in line with professional ethics and professional obligations.

According to Ms Doreen Joy Biira, a Ugandan Journalist based in Kenya, the so-called “brown envelope” is old as the profession. It comes in two various ways: a journalists being induced to publish a positive story or kill a negative story about those offering an envelope especially businessmen and politicians. 

The act is so-called as news subjects or sources would often stuff cash notes in a brown envelope and have it delivered to the journalist or editor.

She says that the poor conditions of services for journalists including poor pay, weak unions’ activities, gender inequality, and low membership remain a major concern in the country.

Lydia Gachungi, the Regional Expert for Safety of Journalists and Media Development, UNESCO Regional Office for Eastern Africa based in capital Nairobi, Kenya, laments that they have tried to fight the vice under an umbrella called Kenya Media Forum (KMF), “the issue of a brown envelope has been discussed very, very extensively by UNESCO through sensitizing journalists but the several attempts have went futile.

Various reports including that of Article 19 show that Kenyan status and state of the professional organizations lack the basic capacities and means to design sustainable, progressive programmes of action on behalf of their members, a situation that creates an environment for journalist to divert from the professional route.

Gachungi explains that despite innervations into the matter, politicians continue to use the journalists’ low pay advantage to distract them from the professional ethics.

In Kenya, journalists especially those in the lower cadre who work as reporters, are ill motivated. They are receive a poor pay between Ksh20, 000 and 30,000 which partly explains the continuous disregard of the ethics of the profession

Gachungi, however, refutes reports that journalists receive envelopes because of the l0w pay saying that even people in the high positions of management who are paid well also receive envelopes to kill and promotes stories. This situation has badly affected reporting and the independence of the media.

“In Kenya senior management are paid very well, pretty well, but reports have indicate that they still receive bribes to kill stories or to promote them, the vice has a lot to do with ethics and lack of respect to the profession,” she said.

August Sanga, a social media editor at the Daily Nation, one of the leading dailies in Kenya, faults the Kenya Journalist Union (KJU) for failure to address problems affecting the media especially low pay.

 “One of the area the union has failed to tackle is the problem of low pay and job security of journalists resulting into them getting other forms of putting bread on the table,” he says.

In the Transparency International, a worldwide corruption fighting body, report on media freedom in Kenya 2017-18 indicates that most journalists working in the Kenya have no job security. They are deprived from any form of social security, health benefits or other forms of social welfare benefits, while some are owed numerous months of salaries. 

Keven Mabonga, the spokesperson for Transparency International Kenya, explained that brown envelope is a “huge problem” that is being discussed in each and every dialogue but remains unresolved.

“It is everywhere, [brown envelope] in fact, we have a conference in a 2 months’ time to discuss it. It is a very huge problem to the Kenya media, it emerged a major threat for many years now, yes, it is highlighted everywhere” Mabonga said adding that a lot is in pipeline key among them, petitioning government to set the minimum standard pay for journalists and several others. 

But Eric Oduori, the General Secretary of KJU, disproved claims that the union has failed to handle the media environment saying they have tried but also face resistance from government and media owners.

Doreen Joy Biira, however, says the conditions explained in the report cut across to many growing media industries in all of the East African region sharing the experience from Uganda.

She explains that most of the private media houses in Kenya are weakly and poorly established and cannot provide proper salaries and sustainable jobs to journalists and media workers causing journalists.