Professional journalists working in the media have for days asked to kick out quacks who go around town including events grounds parading themselves as journalists to extort money from people.
There have been numerous complaints of people soliciting money in the name of journalists. On many occasions unscrupulous individuals have taken advantage of the situation to harass and get money and other favours from the public.
Media Council of Kenya has said it will launch a major crackdown on quacks who have gatecrashed the Kenyan media industry.
The agency’s chief executive officer David Omwoyo said that the council is targeting six counties for a major operation in the coming weeks to weed out the quacks who have taken over several counties in the country.
Mr Omwoyo said that the quacks are involved in a myriad of misdemeanors including misrepresentation of facts, taking money by false pretense and asking for handouts from news sources, among other unprofessional practices.
According to the Council’s boss, 19 cases have been reported in Kilifi County in recent weeks.
The MCK boss has also stated that the Council is preparing to storm Homa Bay, Nairobi, Kisumu, Mombasa, Turkana and Garissa Counties, without giving the exact date but saying that they are in the process of doing letters to the counties, in an operation that he said will ‘be extremely decisive ‘.
“It is a major challenge. We shall crackdown on the quack journalists because Media Council is the only body mandated to register journalists in the country. It will be decisive and will be less about press freedom but extortion. The quacks who move from one place to the other asking for handouts, taking money by false pretense and misrepresentation of facts,” said Mr Omwoyo.
Some years back MSK developed a system to expose rogue journalists in its efforts to promote professionalism in the media industry.
With the new system, one can easily establish the status of any journalist accredited by the Council through a mobile phone thus stop cases of impersonation and bribery however it seems like the system did not work.