Home » Raila Odinga receives more media coverage than Ruto, according to Media Council of Kenya

Raila Odinga receives more media coverage than Ruto, according to Media Council of Kenya

by Enock Ndayala
Raila Odinga's children

On Thursday, June 2, United Democratic Alliance (UDA) presidential candidate William Ruto accused Citizen TV, Inooro TV, and Daily Nation of openly campaigning for his competitor Raila Odinga.

Ruto said that the stations had breached the statutory terms of their licenses as well as constitutional freedoms through the unequal allocation of coverage, and negative framing of the UDA presidential candidate and his associates.

Ruto will be facing off with Raila Odinga of the Azimio la Umoja-One Kenya coalition party in the August 9, a presidential election among other hopefuls including the Roots party of Kenya George Wajackoyah.

Research done between April and June 2022, has revealed that the former Prime Minister received more coverage than the deputy president William Ruto in all categories including broadcast, print, and online.

According to the research dubbed An Analysis of Media Coverage of the 2022 General Election Campaign done by the Media Council of Kenya (MCK), Raila had 865,665 while Ruto had only 549,338 shares of voice on radio respectively.

During the period under review, President Uhuru Kenyatta’s handshake partner enjoyed 2,471, 594 seconds on mainstream Television while Ruto had only 1,224, 417 seconds.

For instance, in the three months, KTN News covered 495 stories of Raila Odinga against 336 stories about Deputy President William Ruto.

Citizen TV aired 486 stories touching on the Azimio la Umoja-One Kenya coalition flag bearer against William Ruto’s 279.

Out of the 495 stories covered in 13 local dailies i.e The Star, The Standard, The People Daily, and Daily Nation among others, 266 stories touched on Raila while 209 touched on William Ruto.

However, Radio which remains king in promoting diversity in coverage saw an increase in coverage of Kenya Kwanza overtaking the Azimio la Umoja-One Kenya coalition.

The report focused on how the mainstream media has been reporting on the 17 presidential candidates who had expressed strong interest in the seat and showed up for the IEBC clearance and registration.

This comes even as the Deputy President withdrew from this year’s presidential debate over unfair treatment terming the exercise as a “waste of time.”

“We have noted with much concern the repeated and continued bias and propaganda in a section of Kenya’s mainstream media in abuse of statutory,

“Under the current partisan media environment, we have advised our candidate against participating in the presidential debate,” he said.

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