Two breaking news items from Kenya’s leading dailies, reporting the alleged arrest of a Jubilee MP on allegations of voter bribery in Uganda, have caused confusion after a Senior State House official challenged the authenticity of the reports.
The Star and the Nation broke the news of the alleged arrest of Teso South MP Mary Emase through their Twitter platforms and later followed by a story on the Nation website.
State House Director of Digital Communications Dennis Itumbi, however, dismissed the news item as fake and challenged the respective media houses to reveal the police stations or authorities confirming the same.
The Star would later run a story, quoting police officials who dismissed the arrest of the Jubilee MP.
They, however, quoted what they termed as unconfirmed sources giving details on the purported circumstances that led to the legislator's being placed in custody.
The Nation, on the other hand, changed its story and reported that ODM had claimed a Jubilee MP had been arrested while seeking to illegally register Ugandans as voters in her constituency, located in Busia county, near the Kenya-Uganda border.
Later in the day, the tweet on the Nation Twitter account was deleted and the story pulled down altogether from their site, thus attracting criticism from Itumbi and other users who had been following up on the story.
The Standard also picked up the story and quoted anonymous police sources in Kenya who confirmed that the MP’s bodyguard had been arrested and detained at Mawero Police Station.
The Mombasa Road-based daily also quoted unnamed witnesses who claimed the MP had escaped on foot after she was facilitated with a change of clothes. They, however, added a disclaimer noting that, “The Standard could not independently verify this information.”
“The art and craft of journalism whether offline or online is about facts and verifiable truth. Media cannot act as a conveyor belt of market and bar gossip,” Itumbi stated on the confusion by the leading national dailies.
The alleged arrest caused anxiety considering it came in the backdrop of Opposition leader Raila Odinga's claims that the Jubilee administration was registering Ugandans and Ethiopians as voters in a plot to rig the August elections.
In 2013, Ms Emase made history by becoming the only MP elected on a URP party ticket from the Western region. She is currently one of the officials serving on President Uhuru Kenyatta's campaign team from Western.
