Media coverage tone

Parliament Pulse

The tone of mainstream media coverage of Parliament, tracked from a fixed allowlist of Kenyan outlets — see exactly how it works.

This is a media-coverage tone tracker, not an opinion poll. It measures how allowlisted Kenyan newsrooms covered Parliament, as read by an AI classifier with human review — it says nothing about what Kenyans as a whole think or approve of. No figure is shown from fewer than 5 reviewed items, and every figure traces back to the listed items below. See the methodology for the full pipeline and its limits.

Bills currently before Parliament

What the Senate is working on — for each Bill: its current stage, how media is covering it, and what citizens have submitted. These are three separate readings, never blended into one score.
Parliamentary activity as of the last recorded order paper (sitting): 13 Aug 2026 — this can lag by a few weeks, and Parliament may be in recess.

The Referendum Bill

What Parliament is doing Bill at Committee of the Whole Stage last recorded 23 Jul 2026
How media covers it Not enough reviewed coverage yet (0 items).
What citizens submitted No published submissions yet. Be the first to have your say

Coverage-tone context

Everything below measures the tone of media coverage of Parliament across all topics — background context for the Bills above. It is not public opinion and not a poll.

What’s moving this week

Topics ranked by current coverage volume × how far their tone moved against the trailing four-bucket baseline (weekly buckets where the week has 5+ reviewed items, else monthly). A topic only ranks when both windows clear 5 items.

Security ↑ 0.46 n = 15 items this month · baseline -0.64 (n = 17)
Devolution ↓ -0.13 n = 29 items this month · baseline -0.32 (n = 22)
Healthcare ↓ -0.19 n = 10 items this month · baseline -0.29 (n = 8)
Corruption & Accountability ↓ -0.18 n = 9 items this month · baseline -0.38 (n = 7)
Governance & Constitution ↑ 0.06 n = 21 items this month · baseline -0.16 (n = 20)
132Items analysed (n)
28%Positive (37 of 132)
0%Neutral (0 of 132)
72%Negative (95 of 132)

Coverage Tone Over Time

Monthly sample sizes: 2026-06 (n = 19) · 2026-07 (n = 93) · 2026-08 (n = 20). Months with fewer than 5 reviewed items are not plotted.

28% 72%
↓ Download CSV
Coverage tone by topic — show the data table

A single item can mention several topics, so these mentions sum to more than the 132 items analysed. Topics under 5 mentions show no average.

TopicMentions (n)Average tone
Devolution 51 -0.40 (n = 51)
Governance & Constitution 41 -0.13 (n = 41)
Security 32 -0.43 (n = 32)
Education 31 -0.28 (n = 31)
Economy & Taxation 22 -0.37 (n = 22)
Healthcare 18 -0.40 (n = 18)
Corruption & Accountability 16 -0.48 (n = 16)
Agriculture 2 too few (n = 2)

By Source

SourceItems (n)Average tone
The Standard126 -0.28 (n = 126)
Nation5 -0.47 (n = 5)
The Star1 too few (n = 1)

Recent Items

Every figure on this page is built from items like these — each linked to its source.

Consequential Gold Processing Bill gets nod from MPs
Positive · The Standard · 16 Aug 2026 · read
Detectives recover weapons from Kapondi's home as probe into Wasama's murder intensifies
Negative · The Standard · 14 Aug 2026 · read
Parliament passes Bill seeking dedicated lanes for cyclists and pedestrians
Positive · The Standard · 14 Aug 2026 · read
Goons a threat to credible polls as police remain aloof
Negative · The Standard · 11 Aug 2026 · read
Negotiated democracy: Elders endorse Lafey MP for second term
Positive · The Standard · 8 Aug 2026 · read
Gunmen Kill Mt Elgon Politician Nathan Wasama Masai
Negative · The Standard · 7 Aug 2026 · read
Kalonzo revamps Wiper ahead of 2027, hands Jamleck, Njiru key roles
Positive · The Standard · 7 Aug 2026 · read
Degrees of debt: How Ruto's new varsity funding plan will drown students in debts
Negative · The Standard · 7 Aug 2026 · read
Degrees of debt: Ruto's new varsity funding plan to drown students in debts
Negative · The Standard · 7 Aug 2026 · read
Senate backs proposal to introduce early voting, allow security personnel to vote
Positive · The Standard · 6 Aug 2026 · read
DCP leaders warn state against intimidation, call for MP Kaguchia's release
Positive · The Standard · 4 Aug 2026 · read
Why Kaguchia? MP's arrest reignites questions over unequal justice
Negative · The Standard · 4 Aug 2026 · read
Sale of illegal pesticides persists despite crackdown, Auditor General says
Negative · The Standard · 3 Aug 2026 · read
Auction House: Legislators expose rot inside 13th Parliament
Negative · The Standard · 3 Aug 2026 · read
Kenya-UK military pact raises legal, constitutional questions
Negative · The Standard · 3 Aug 2026 · read
Recipe for rigging: Battle looms over plan to scrap IEBC's livestreaming of election results
Negative · The Standard · 3 Aug 2026 · read
Battle looms over plan to scrap livestreaming of election results
Negative · The Standard · 3 Aug 2026 · read
Auction House: Legislators expose rot inside 13th Parliament
Negative · The Standard · 2 Aug 2026 · read
Linda Mwananchi raises Sh3m in a day through small public donations
Positive · The Standard · 1 Aug 2026 · read
Refuse to bow to tyrants in public offices, they are your servants
Negative · The Standard · 1 Aug 2026 · read

How This Is Measured

This page tracks the tone of media coverage — it is NOT a statistical opinion poll and never measures public opinion or approval. The pipeline: articles from a fixed allowlist of Kenyan outlets (Nation, The Standard, The Star, People Daily, Citizen Digital, NTV, K24, KTN News, KBC and Business Daily) are ingested every few hours; a classifier first scores each item’s relevance to the Parliament of Kenya, and items below the relevance floor are rejected outright.

Surviving items are classified positive / neutral / negative (with a −1.0 to +1.0 score) by an AI language model; confident calls publish, borderline ones wait in a human review queue. Items are then linked to the members and Bills they name, with uncertain links held for editor review. No average is shown from fewer than 5 reviewed items, every average is printed with its sample size, and every figure traces to the listed items with source, link and date. Full details: methodology.