Nairobi Chief Magistrate Douglas Ogoti on Friday declined to grant a request by National Youth Serice (NYS) scandal suspects to bar Nation Media Group reporters Sam Kiplagat and Brian Wasuna from covering the trial.
The court also dismissed a petition by the defence lawyers to cross-examine the journalists following complaints of bias in their reporting.
According to the petition, the lawyers claimed that the Daily Nation newspaper had an interest in the case.
It was Nation that first reported that up to Ksh10 billion may have been lost in the NYS, a figure that was met with skepticism and denials by authorities.
The Director of Public Prosecution Noordin Haji later revealed that as much as Sh8 billion had been lost in the NYS I and II financial scandals.
Brian authored an article on the paper that explained how members of the Ngirita family from Naivasha received Ksh918 million from the NYS.
Kiplagat also wrote stories following up on the graft suspects' cases, which they told the court painted them in a bad light.
The suspects suffered another setback after Ogoti refused to adjourn the case any further as requested by the defence, in order give them more time to prepare for a revised charge sheet by Director of Prosecution Noordin Haji.
On Thursday, the magistrate adjourned the trial after the lawyers complained that he had overlooked the rights of the accused in an earlier ruling.
35 suspects were charged afresh earlier this week with Haji withdrawing charges for some who agreed to become state witnesses.
