Framing the News

Kenya recently celebrated Katiba Day, but the milestone hardly registered with most Kenyans. They treated it like it was no big deal.

And yet, Kenya’s Constitution (2010) was written and published for the people. It is accessible to anyone with a secondary school education.

Kenya does not suffer from a shortage of civic materiel either. The Constitution of Kenya (2010) is available in every language, simplified in booklets, and summarized in posters. Billions have been spent on collateral.

So why didn't Kenyans care about Katiba Day? Because they couldn't link it to their daily lives. 

Most citizens lack the political imagination to connect rights on paper to struggles on the ground.

Kenyans can read the constitution, but they lack the political education necessary to use it. They need critical, politically aware, historically grounded training to use it to contest elites and to change public life.

To the people, the constitution is an abstract text, often invoked in courtrooms, quoted in speeches, or brandished in political debates, but not lived as a daily framework for power, justice, and accountability.

The constitution is not an abstract text. 

The constitution is the supreme law of the land, the people’s overarching safeguard against dictatorship, and their most powerful governance tool. It is literally the nation's operating system. 

Its absence in daily life is a failure of our political culture. While the constitution is available and readable, its meaning in everyday practice is contested terrain that often leaves the citizens baffled, bewildered, and bamboozled. 

Kenyans wrote themselves a progressive constitution but never built the tools to teach people how to use it. We lost the pedagogy to turn rights on paper into power on the ground.

Closing this gap requires cultivating the ability to see the link between constitutional rights and everyday struggles by millions of people. 

Citizens need to see the link between Article 43 on social and economic rights and the rising cost of living; between devolution, the governance of local health centers, and the failures of the SHA; and between the Bill of Rights and the persistent abuse of police power.

As things currently stand, the people don't stand a chance against the elite, who possess both the political imagination and the skills to utilize the constitution to serve their interests, which they always do at the expense of the citizens.

For the constitution to serve the people as designed, for it to be useful as a democratic weapon, citizens must treat it as a daily reference point in politics, governance, and community life. 

But how?

We need interpreters who can make its meaning relevant to ordinary struggles, who can turn abstract clauses into concrete, actionable knowledge. 

Interpreters who can deliver emancipatory pedagogy at scale.

Interpreters who can build and sustain the political imagination of the Kenyan people.

Journalists as Interpreters

Journalists are uniquely positioned for this task. To the degree journalists decide what issues are highlighted, how they are framed, and whose voices are amplified, they are the interpreters of public life.

Investing in journalists’ constitutional training would equip the nation’s primary communicators with the tools to build a democratic public sphere anchored in constitutionalism. 

Without them, constitutional knowledge will remain trapped in classrooms, law offices, and courtrooms. With them, it can become the language of daily political life.

The issue is urgent.

Many journalists lack constitutional training and often fall back on elite-driven narratives. For example, coverage of devolution often reduces to reporting county corruption scandals, while ignoring deeper questions about power-sharing, fiscal justice, or historical marginalization. Similarly, when courts deliver rulings on electoral law, journalists may focus on political drama rather than explaining constitutional principles to citizens.

Stories on devolution, public finance, or land reform often get reduced to political rivalry. A journalist trained in constitutional literacy would instead ground the story in Articles 10 (national values), 174 (devolution), or 201 (principles of public finance), helping citizens see that the dispute is not about personalities but about the architecture of power.

Instead of simply reporting “tribal tensions,” constitutionally trained journalists can shift the conversation to: What does the Constitution say about equal treatment? How do we hold leaders accountable? How do communities demand resources without being divided along ethnic lines?

Journalists have reach. 

A single story on a mainstream platform can shift the perspectives of millions, far beyond what workshops or pamphlets could achieve. 

Journalists are also trusted intermediaries between experts and the general public. They can translate dense constitutional texts and court judgments into everyday language, using clear and relatable stories and examples.

Their power to set the frame for national conversations through headlines, talk shows, and features enables journalists to normalize a culture where the constitution sets the terms of public debate. This would be a signal civic service to the Republic of Kenya.

The nation needs journalists to frame stories through power analysis, showing how policies advance or undermine rights; translate complex legal issues into accessible narratives without stripping away their substance; challenge elite manipulation by situating today’s debates within Kenya’s history of constitutional struggle; and empower citizens by reporting events and highlighting avenues of political action within the constitutional framework.

Investing in journalists’ constitutional training would liberate the constitution from classrooms, law offices, courtrooms, and legislatures, carrying it into matatus, kitchens, living rooms, and even bedrooms.

Journalists can serve a higher function than merely conveying the news. They can also be aggregators and multipliers of political consciousness. 

With constitutional training, journalists can be powerful allies of the constitution. 

Patrick Kariuki is the Editor of The Kenyan Observer