By Ken Bosire
As the country debates compensation for victims of recent protests, one group risks being forgotten: journalists.
I make this plea as a citizen, a veteran journalist, and a former newsroom leader who deployed reporters into danger so the public could know the truth.
I have taken the calls. Reporters trapped between protesters and police, voices shaking. I have been to hospital wards. I have marched against police brutality. I have written the statements when our crews were attacked. I have seen cameras smashed to pieces. Bodies bruised. Careers derailed. Lives altered by assignments done in service to the public.
The headlines fade. The trauma doesn’t. The public sees the bulletin and moves on. They don’t see the nightmares, the anxiety and fear that trails a reporter home after documenting death and bloodshed. They don’t see the weight of witnessing human suffering, day after day, so the nation stays informed.
But journalists keep showing up and stand where most wouldn’t dare. Which begs the question: Why are they absent from compensation talks?
Journalists are not bystanders. They are first responders of democracy. They are first to arrive and last to leave.
They get injured.
They get arrested.
They get assaulted.
They are tear-gassed.
They are shot at.
Their equipment is destroyed.
Their careers are disrupted.
Their mental health is shattered.
Sometimes, they are killed.
Like doctors running into wards or firefighters into flames, journalists run toward chaos when everyone else runs away. They document in real time, gather evidence and verify facts. In national crises, they are the nation’s eyes and ears.
Yet unlike other first responders, their sacrifices are invisible. Their injuries unrecorded. Their trauma uncompensated. They absorb violence so society can understand it. They witness death not as spectators, but as frontline chroniclers of history. A democracy that abandons its press cannot claim to value truth.
The Kenya Editors Guild documented attacks on journalists during the March anti-government protests. The list is long:
Melita Ole Tenges, formerly NTV and now with Citizen TV. Dickson Onyango, NTV. Calvin Rock Odhiambo and Clint Obere, Africa Uncensored. Seth Orlale, Ken Njenga Wambui, Watson Muhanji, Dismas Nabiswa, David Sirengo, Royal Media Services. Samuel Gitau Mbao, Ngina Kirore, Brian Muchiri, Eric Isinta, Winnie Chepkemoi, Jeremick Joe, NTV. Timona Abuna, KTN. A foreign journalist with AFP. An unnamed journalist with CGTN. Abel Onyango Odongo.
These are not statistics. They are colleagues. Professionals. Fathers. Mothers. Sons. Daughters. They left home to tell Kenya’s story. They returned injured, traumatised, forever changed. For every name listed, dozens more suffered in silence. Their scars deserve recognition.
Without journalists, most abuses during protests would remain hidden. Their cameras captured the evidence. Their reporting fuels public debate, accountability, and even the compensation claims now being discussed.
To exclude them from justice is to erase the record. It is critical for the Government, Parliament, and all commissions handling compensation to urgently engage the Kenya Editors Guild, Kenya Union of Journalists, and Association of Media Women in Kenya. This will create a clear, fair framework to identify and compensate journalists who suffered injury, trauma, or loss of property in the line of duty.
This is not a demand for privilege. It is a demand for equality. For fairness. For justice.
These are patriots who traded safety for truth. Comfort for country.
For too long, journalists have told the stories of victims while carrying their own wounds in silence. For too long, they documented pain while their own went unseen. For too long, they stood on history’s frontlines, only to be ignored when violence turned on them. This must end.
Compensate the victims of protest violence. And compensate the journalists too. They bled for the story. They sacrificed for the truth. They carry the scars.
No Kenyan who suffered in the service of truth should be left behind.
The author is Training/ Consulting Editor and Advisory Board member at the Kisii Press Club.
