A Comparative Study of the Watchdog Role Among Kenya’s Leading Television Stations

Abstract

Television remains the main source of news for most Kenyans, giving it real influence over how the public understands governance and accountability, but little research has systematically compared how Kenya’s leading stations perform this watchdog function. This study used the Watchdog Theory as its theoretical framework and employed quantitative content analysis to compare watchdog performance across KTN, Citizen TV, and NTV. Systematic random sampling selected 50 watchdog-relevant news stories aired between July 2025 and June 2026 from the stations’ official YouTube channels, which were coded for topic focus, scrutiny applied to power, and sourcing patterns. The study found that corruption and public finance dominated coverage at all three stations (42% of stories) but received the lowest average scrutiny of any topic, while government officials were the most cited and most dominant source in total (78% and 44% of stories, respectively). Station profiles diverged sharply, with NTV showing the highest scrutiny and interpretive voice, Citizen TV drawing on the broadest source mix while relying most heavily on government officials as its dominant source, and KTN averaging the lowest scrutiny despite producing the only investigative-level stories across the sample. In light of the foregoing, Kenyan television kept corruption visible but rarely subjected it to critical scrutiny, and all three stations leaned heavily on official sources despite differing formats and ownership structures. These findings support watchdog theory’s premise that Kenyan television performs a monitorial function, though unevenly across stations. The study recommends that Kenyan newsrooms expand investigative-strand formats and diversify their sourcing beyond government officials, especially for corruption and public finance stories, which tend to combine high coverage volume with low critical scrutiny.