Ethical Journalism in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: A Critical Content Review of the Media Council of Kenya's Handbook for Reporting on Artificial Intelligence

This study critically examined the Media Council of Kenya's (MCK) Media Handbook for Reporting on Artificial Intelligence in Kenya as an institutional framework for governing ethical AI use in journalism. Although there has been an increasing amount of research into AI governance in the West, empirical research on AI governance on the African continent is relatively underdeveloped. This study aims to fill that gap by systematically analyzing the MCK handbook using qualitative content analysis that focuses on five ethical dimensions of accountability, transparency, human oversight, structural equity and enforcement capacity. Secondary empirical data was collected through peer-reviewed research on Kenyan journalism, on African media systems and on what is happening in the world of AI and journalism, and was fed in to examine the claims made in an existing handbook against the documented newsroom realities. Based on Social Responsibility Theory and Critical Political Economy of Media, the findings show that there are three significant patterns. First, the handbook shows a high level of normative consistency with internationally accepted principles of AI ethics, such as "Human-in-the-Loop" oversight and verification. Second, it has substantial gaps, most significantly because of the lack of enforcement mechanisms, poor considerate engagement with the political economy of AI in African media and the lack of contextualization in the Kenyan socio-political context. Third, the governance assumptions are often at odds with what is realistically found in Kenyan newsrooms, such as the economic precarity, reliance on technology and lack of equal access to verification tools. The study provides a framework for analyzing AI journalism governance documents from an African perspective using an empirical approach and offers concrete evidence-based suggestions for enhancing the usefulness and practicality of the MCK handbook.

Artificial Intelligence, journalism ethics, AI governance

1. Beckett, C. (2019). New powers, new responsibilities: A global survey of journalism and artificial intelligence. London School of Economics and Political Science. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

2. Birhane, A. (2020). Algorithmic colonization of Africa. SCRIPTed, 17(2), 389–409. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

3. Broussard, M. (2018). Artificial unintelligence: How computers misunderstand the world. MIT Press. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

4. Carlson, M. (2023). Generative AI and the future of journalism. Digital Journalism, 11(8), 1235–1242. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

5. Couldry, N., & Mejias, U. A. (2019). The costs of connection: How data is colonizing human life and appropriating it for capitalism. Stanford University Press. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

6. Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2018). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (5th ed.). Sage. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

7. Diakopoulos, N. (2019). Automating the news: How algorithms are rewriting the media. Harvard University Press. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

8. Graefe, A. (2016). Guide to automated journalism. Columbia University Tow Center for Digital Journalism. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

9. Harwood, A., Hicks, D., & Waisbord, S. (2017). Strengthening Kenyan media: Exploring a path towards journalism in the public interest. Reboot. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

10. Ireri, K. (2016). Do they preach water but drink wine? Examining the corruption dragon in Kenyan journalism. Journalism Practice, 10(6), 729–749. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

11. Jobin, A., Ienca, M., & Vayena, E. (2019). The global landscape of AI ethics guidelines. Nature Machine Intelligence, 1(9), 389–399. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

12. Krippendorff, K. (2004). Content analysis: An introduction to its methodology (2nd ed.). Sage. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

13. Mare, A. (2020). Social media, election politics and disinformation in Africa: A critical review. African Journalism Studies, 41(4), 1–18. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

14. Media Council of Kenya. (2021). State of the media in Kenya report. MCK. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

15. Media Council of Kenya. (2024). Media handbook for reporting on artificial intelligence in Kenya. MCK. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

16. Mosco, V. (2009). The political economy of communication (2nd ed.). Sage. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

17. Noble, S. U. (2018). Algorithms of oppression: How search engines reinforce racism. New York University Press. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

18. Nordenstreng, K. (1997). Beyond the four theories of the press. In J. Servaes & R. Lie (Eds.), Media and politics in transition (pp. 97–109). Acco. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

19. Okoro, N., & Onuoha, U. D. (2013). Journalists' perception of brown envelope syndrome and its implications for journalism practice in Nigeria. Research Gate. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

20. Pasquale, F. (2015). The black box society: The secret algorithms that control money and information. Harvard University Press. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

21. Siebert, F. S., Peterson, T., & Schramm, W. (1956). Four theories of the press. University of Illinois Press. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

22. Skjerdal, T. S. (2010). Justifying self-censorship: A qualitative interview study of Ethiopian journalists. Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture, 7(2), 41–57. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

23. Srnicek, N. (2017). Platform capitalism. Polity Press. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

24. UNESCO. (2021). Recommendation on the ethics of artificial intelligence. UNESCO. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

25. Vaccari, C., & Chadwick, A. (2020). Deepfakes and disinformation: Exploring the impact of synthetic political video on deception, uncertainty, and trust in news. Social Media + Society, 6(1), 1–13. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

26. Ward, S. J. A. (2018). Ethical journalism in a populist age: The democratically engaged journalist. Rowman & Littlefield. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

27. Wasserman, H. (2020). Media, geopolitics and power: A view from the Global South. University of Illinois Press. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

28. Zuboff, S. (2019). The age of surveillance capitalism. Public Affairs. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

• A Study on the Contribution of Radio Song Lyrics to the Implementation of Development Projects in Sri Lanka (Focusing on the “Cultivation Campaign and Cultivation War”)