But I have never felt that CNN needs to tell a balanced story like I did during the current unrest. I needed Paula Newton, reporting from Nairobi, to interview and bring stories from both sides of the political divide.
The election was 50-50 and CNN had a duty to interview the people who voted Raila Odinga, those who feel he should be president as well as the other half who feel that Mwai Kibaki should continue.
For the three stories I watched on CNN, they were a disgrace to international reporting. They only interviewed those opposing peace and willing to perpetrate the violence. I believe we needed to hear the voices of the people not willing to fight, willing to bring dialogue into the mix.
I believe that not all people in the opposition were killing their neighbors. Therefore, the story did not need to interview Kibaki’s supporters, but should have gotten at least one person willing to say, there are other ways other than killing each other.
The international media claims to be taking international angles to stories but all CNN did was to show Kenya as a desperate and hostile country and visitors should not come. I am not saying it was better, but a balanced story would have done us proud.
Understanding the local language is important. For instance there was this injured guy who was brought on air, and the guys carrying him asked in Swahili “unampeleka hospitali” (are you taking him to hospital?)
But the journalist said that the guys were asking in Swahili “are you shot or cut?” apparently, the injured guy is supposed to have answered that he was shot.
That was wrong translation. But I understand the journalist, the local language was a challenge and for the international audience, they may not care much what the injured guy said.
Because we have faith that people will heal and embrace each other again, I hope CNN will be around to cover that and will not rush to the next big story.
By the way, how comes CNN does not cover American soldiers or civilians bleeding and writhing in pain, yet they show such images from other places??
