Reporting humanitarian crisis during the post election violence: analysis of print media in Kenya.

Abstract

The study investigated the role the print media played during the humanitarian crisis which was caused by Kenya's post election violence. Several literature on role of media during humanitarian crises situations were consulted most of which revealed that media plays a positive role of mobilizing humanitarian assistance during crisis. Through content analysis, the Nation and the Standard newspaper reports on the humanitarian crisis were examined, the data obtained was analyzed and possible explanations for the findings presented. The main finding was that Kenya's media succeeded to expose the humanitarian issues of water, food, shelter, security, health and sanitation which they gathered from a wide variety of sources principally government, experts and persons themselves affected by the crisis. The effectiveness of the newspapers in setting a humanitarian agenda was however reduced by the manner in which the news was presented by the media. The newspapers gave low importance to the humanitarian information by presenting it in the less important inside pages and in sizes too miniscule to attract any serious attention o.f readers and policy makers . Arising from the literature research and the content analysis findings, the research made various recommendations on how the media can make information more salient and prominent in order for humanitarian news to favorably compete with the myriad of issues that call for our attention at any given time.