[COLOR=rgb(44, 130, 201)]…they failed to carry out due diligence when the car burnt and chose to go the easy way of following “citizen (not the media house!) journalists”.
I came across this indictment by the media watchdog The Media Council of Kenya over the incident…
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Media Review
[SIZE=7]The burning Probox of Kitui[/SIZE]
“This was a Probox vehicle from somewhere in Nunguni. Around Equity Bank the driver started seeing smoke emanating from the bonnet. It is a good thing he was alone in the vehicle. The effort of trying to put out the fire was complicated because of the charcoal,” said John Nyamu, the OCPD Mwingi.
The Daily Nation’s online editor Churchill Otieno talking about fake news says that, when given an opportunity between right and fast, a journalist should choose right. That means a journalist should confirm, or rather fact-check, information before publishing. Otieno will tell you that “fakeness starts at the headline”. Therefore it is the duty of the journalist to debunk everything.
Evidently, this maxim by the seasoned editor was not upheld when a Probox vehicle was reported to have caught fire in Mwingi Town while ferrying charcoal. Many media houses, led by Otieno’s Nation, The Star, The Standard and Citizen TV, reported that the vehicle was set ablaze by irate youths who were opposed to selling and buying of charcoal in Kitui County following a ban enforced by Governor Charity Ngilu. The incident took place on 27 February and was reported online immediately and subsequently.
Citizen TV shared a clip on its official Facebook page and Twitter handle that a Probox “ferrying charcoal was set ablaze” in Mwingi. A closer scrutiny of the video showed a very calm crowd watching a car burning while other persons carried the charcoal away. A police officer in civilian clothes tries to push the crowd away from the action.
The Daily Nation online headline read: “Mwingi residents torch another vehicle carrying charcoal”. The story provides more details, narrating how business came to a standstill along Mwingi-Garissa highway after youths burnt down the car. The story goes to intimate how efforts by police officers to take charge aborted “as they were stoned and chased away by angry residents….”
The Star screamed – “two escape death as car ferrying charcoal is burned in Mwingi”. Well, this story was pulled down by March 13. According to The Star, there were two people in the vehicle.
Unlike the Star, The Standard reported this in singular – “A charcoal trader today escaped death by a whisker after an irate gang of youths flushed him out of his Toyota Probox car and set it ablaze.”
This has turned out to be one of the biggest fake news stories by the mainstream media so far this year.
Our suspicions were aroused mostly by the calm crowd captured in the video clips published by the media and the rejoinders of residents of Kitui County on social media who seemed to indicate the contrary. For example, Angela Rhoda Musyoka (a director with a local organisation in Kitui) while responding to a post by Masese Kamunche (a deputy director at Centre for Enhancing Democracy and Good Governance in Nakuru) posted: “Masese Kamunche it was a battery fault and as a result it blew into flames…and nobody knew it was ferrying charcoal until the flames.” Phew!
The MCK sought to establish the facts of the story. The first stop was NTV. There was a perception that Mwingi residents could have been part of the scheme to burn the Probox that was carrying charcoal following Ngilu’s ban on sand and charcoal business in Kitui County.
The team further made a call to Mwingi town, which was answered by the CEO for Centre for Human Rights and Civic Education (CHRCE) who confirmed our partial observations and her post on FB. She stated that eye witnesses at the scene reported that there was an explosion of the car engine leading to a fire which burned down the car. Angela Musyoka confirmed that the eye witnesses only realised that there was charcoal in the car when they went to put out the fire.
We also sought the help of one of Governor Ngilu’s top advisers. He refused to comment.
[SIZE=6]Important findings[/SIZE]
Just like Angela Musyoka had indicated in a conversation with one of our staff, the car was not set ablaze. The fire emanated from the bonnet. The driver tried to put it out but was overwhelmed and the fire spread fast due to the charcoal he was ferrying.
The OCPD indicated that both the driver and the owner of the car recorded statements with the police. The driver, according to the police and various eye-witnesses interviewed, got out of the car and watched it from a far as it burned. The details of the car where shared with the MCK team as follows:
Number plate: KCE 591K. A Toyota pro-box. Driver: Paul Njoroge Machua.
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The Probox vehicle burnt into a shell. MCK photo, 3 March 2018.
MCK established that there was only one person in the car at the time it caught fire and not two as The Star reported. The car was not set ablaze (by a “gang of irate youths”) as per most mainstream media reports, but caught fire as a result of mechanical issues as reported by the driver to the police. Police said that they were on their usual patrol business when they came across the burning vehicle.
When asked whether there were any journalists who made inquiries about these facts, the OCPD said that only one journalist tried to get in touch with him, “but this never materialised as I was busy trying to find water to put out the fire”. Eye witnesses indicated that the police came back in the evening after 6:00pm to put out the fire.
This left a serious gap – where did the journalists get their sources? Kitui OCPD Nyamu asked of the media: “Why hide the truth?”
It is clear that Mwingi residents were trying to help the driver put out the fire when they discovered the charcoal, which, according to the OCPD, “was not viable for commercial purposes”. The team also noted that reporting by the media generally lacked corroboration by credible sources.