The radio is on all the time here. At the house, the TV is airing SKYnews or the BBC. There is a cacaphony of whistles, tinny pop tunes and annoying factory ring tones as we receive phone calls and SMSs from people across the country and around the world.
We are information hungry. So are people across Kenya.
Although mobile phones are changing the information map in East Africa (see post, Reporting on the past, presenting the future), radio is still king here.
Talking with Mama Hamza in Kibera on Thursday afternoon, she said food was scarce but she was most hungry for information.
With all the confusion about what is happening around the country, credible information is critical.
At our impromptu office here in Karen, we count on Capital and Kiss FM for updates about what is happening on the ground. As I was listening to news earlier this morning, Caroline Mutoko was railing against what she sees as the failure of all political leaders to take the actions necessary to begin making peace in Kenya.
As she read out her list of greivances with Kibaki and Raila, she kept repeating, "If this is my last broadcast..." and "If this is our last show..."
I started to get worried. Although Kenya has a relatively free media compared to many African countries, there are recent stories of media muzzling. Shortly before I arrived in Kenya, reporters took the streets to silently protest a new law that would have made it easier for courts to pressure journalists to reveal their sources.
A friend who works at Capital assured me that things are fine at their station.
At another station, the news editor told me that, although the government declared a ban on all live broadcasts shortly after Kibaki was sworn in earlier this week, negotiations between media owners and the government had ensured that most radio and TV stations are still up and running as normal.
When I got Kiss FM's news editor on the phone, I asked Carol Radull why her host kept talking about going off the air and about a blackout. She said, effectively, the station managers have decided to push back at the political leaders. She said they are carefully selecting what they air, since they know the power of faulty or propagandistic information to increase tensions here.
"We�ve not given politicians a complete blackout, but we are selecting carefully what to run and what not to run," Radull said. "If a politician says something that we know will lead to more bloodshed, we will ignore it. We will also ignore those calling for peace yet they�re doing nothing about it."
This morning, Mutoko was railing against politicians who, she says, continue to talk big without taking real action. You can hear a clip here (with apologies for the jokers in the background).
My contact at Capital FM said Mutoko is known to be controversial.
At least, for the moment, she is free to be as controversial as she likes.
There are countless media reports comparing the tribal violence in parts of Kenya to the genocide in Rwanda. Hate messages broadcast by radio are blamed for much of the retaliatory violence that was part of that conflict. Although the Kenyan government has been sending out messages warning people to stop sending SMSs that incite violence (see post, Peace-loving, Peace-building), I have not heard reports of radio being using as a medium for hate messages here.
Kiss and Capital are both airing messages and music encouraging people to build peace and brotherhood in Kenya.
They are telling people where to take donations for people in need. They are reminding Kenyans that, a week ago, they were one nation. And they are talking about the complexities of moving forward from this conflict.
Download the_complexity_of_peace_4_web.mp3
Peace. Justice. Truth.
For all three Kenyans need access to information. They need to maintain a truly free press.
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