The Media Council of Kenya (MCK) is encouraging stakeholder efforts to ensure media freedom in Africa.
The Council CEO David Omwoyo says attaining robust media regulation requires involvement of all stakeholders, including governments and sound media laws.
Mr Omwoyo who met a visiting delegation from the National Communication Council of Cameroon underscored the critical place of capacity building towards ensuring professionalism in the media.
The delegation that is on a benchmarking tour in the country explored areas of collaboration and further extended an invitation to the Council to participate in the upcoming International Forum on the Challenge of the Social Media Regulation: Modalities of Collaboration between African Media Regulators and Digital Platforms scheduled for November 8th-9th 2023, in Cameroon.
“Training the media is a key component of the Council’s mandate that ensures adherence to the set standards. Media training ensures continuity of professional development for the journalists where we build their capacity with new skills on emerging issues in the media”, said Mr Omwoyo.
He affirmed his support to partner with NCC on issues concerning journalists, especially on digital regulation and media information literacy.
He mentioned that the partnership will be key in instilling media freedom and professionalism among journalists in the two countries.
The National Communication Council of Cameroon Board Member Mr Ngando Ntone explained that the meeting was aimed at establishing collaborations, linkages and cooperation between the two institutions.
“The goal of our meeting is to share experiences and exchange ideas on how to combat hate speech, fake news and elections coverage. We seek to implement part of this learning into our processes in order to create favourable working conditions for journalists and the media sector in Cameroon”, noted Mr Ntone.