ABSTRACT

Media organizations are experiencing unprecedented technological, financial, and technological pressures, which have exposed them to severe public scrutiny and put their management practices on the spotlight. In many democratic contexts, media practitioners have responded to these public pressures by instituting a raft of quality control measures aimed at gaining public support and forestalling government interference. This article makes a contribution to these discussions by presenting the results of an investigation of the internally instituted management practices aimed at enhancing media accountability at two newsrooms in Kenya. The study involved semi-structured interviews with purposively selected media managers and journalists and a review of internal documents, which were then analyzed thematically. The results point to weak management systems of the instituted media accountability practices. Consequently, there are perceptions among journalists and media managers that the existing management practices and structures are not sufficient in achieving the level of accountability desirable in a liberal media environment such as Kenya.

摘要

媒体机构正面临着前所未有的技术、财务和技术压力，这使它们面临着严格的公众监督，并使它们的管理实践成为人们关注的焦点。在许多民主背景下，媒体从业者通过制定一系列旨在获得公众支持和防止政府干预的质量控制措施来应对这些公众压力。本文通过介绍旨在加强肯尼亚两家新闻编辑室媒体问责制的内部管理实践调查结果，为这些讨论做出了贡献。该研究包括对有目的地选择的媒体经理和记者进行半结构化采访，并对内部文件进行审查，然后对这些文件进行专题分析。结果表明，所建立的媒体问责实践的管理系统薄弱。因此，记者和媒体管理人员认为现有的管理实践和结构不足以实现肯尼亚等自由媒体环境中理想的问责水平。