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Citizen Watchdog Report: November 2012-April 2013

Washington, DC; Arcata, Calif.: Internews (2013), 35 pp.
"For six months between November 2012 and April 2013, fifty citizen watchdog monitors carefully noted incidents of hate speech and dangerous speech broadcast by five radio stations in Kenya. It was part of Internews in Kenya’s Free and Fair Media (FFM) programme aimed at working with the media to ensure that they covered the General Election of 2013 fairly and responsibly. Known as Citizen Watchdog, the exercise was not so much one of policing as one of accountability – to check incidents of hate speech and dangerous speech on air in the run-up to the 2013 General Election, during the election, and afterwards. Citizen Watchdog ran parallel to Internews’ support to the media through its Free and Fair Media journalism training activities focused on conflict sensitive journalism practices. The five radio stations included KBC Radio Taifa (Kenya Broadcasting Corporation), three vernacular radio stations, and one Swahili broadcaster based in the coastal region. The findings of Citizen Watchdog showed a sharp decline in cases of dangerous speech documented over the six month period: from 20 in November 2012 to zero in April 2013." (Executive summary)