In our ongoing series, “Track Changes,” we critique online content that we have found to be problematic in its assumptions, framing, or language and provide questions or thoughts provoked by each piece. We ask how portrayals and representations need to be not only rephrased, but also historicized, reframed, and rethought. In this post we highlight the controversial reporting by the New York Times of the Dusit Hotel attack in Nairobi last month.
Track Changes: Kenya and the New York Times redux
Cecelia Lynch, CIHA Blog Co-Editor
A month ago, the bombing at Dusit Hotel complex in Nairobi produced a raft of articles in the New York Times – see here and here. It also produced a corresponding raft of criticism from Kenyan observers – for example here, here, and here. These criticisms, justifiably, focused on the choice of The Times to publish a photograph of two people’s slumped and bloodied bodies. The Times reporter (Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura) initially responded to the outcry by deflecting responsibility to the photo desk for the choice of images, a decision for which she later apologized. The Times, for its part, refused requests to take down the photo, stating that its policy was to demonstrate the horror and protesting that the image was not “sensationalized“. In response, Kenyan social media exploded with examples of how bloodied victims’ bodies were not similarly shown in tragedies occurring in the U.S.
The confluence and confusion of responsibility and consent are important to disentangle in this controversy. People should give consent before photos of them – particularly in positions of victimization – are published. Alleged responsibility to readers, as Kenyans – who are NYT readers, too!! – pointed out – does not trump responsibility to those being placed in full public view.
Unfortunately, Jeffrey Gettleman, who staffed the Times East Africa desk previously, left a legacy of problematic reporting on Kenya and the region (as the CIHA Blog has demonstrated – see this post ), reinforcing stereotypes and sliding over complex histories that matter to Kenyans and should also matter to the Times non-Kenyan (read U.S.) “readers”. A tweet from @Raaheli illustrates the result: “how is it possible that the new gettleman is worse than the last gettleman? what did we do to deserve this?” Kenyans’ swift reaction to the ham-handed initial response of the current Times reporter in this case should be understood in this light – perhaps de Freytas-Tamura did not know about Gettleman’s troubled legacy.
Nevertheless, one mistake that the current Times journalist and her co-authors repeated in the reportial part of this piece was one that Gettleman – as well as too many before him – also made. That is to ignore the relations between the U.S. and governments in the region that helped to produce this as well as other tragedies. There is no excuse for the bombing itself. But it takes place in a context shaped by the 2006 invasion of Somalia by Ethiopia with U.S. support, done to overthrow the Islamic Courts government. The Courts, representing a coalition of groups, had begun to stabilize areas of Somalia before the invasion. After the invasion, insecurity increased, and Al-Shebaab formed as a splinter group from the Courts’ coalition members.
Since that time, the U.S., under successive administrations, has strengthened military cooperation with Kenya and Uganda, among others, both of which have contributed forces to fight Al-Shebaab in . In return, both countries have been the sites of terror attacks claimed by the group. Readers of the New York Times, in Kenya but especially in the U.S., need to be reminded of this recent history. The attack was part of an increasing spiral of militarism in which the U.S. is very present, not something that can be isolated as concerning only Kenya, or only Al-Shebaab.