Kenya is one year away from the next General Election, and the political conversation is already taking shape. New political formations are being launched, alliances are being tested and leaders are positioning themselves for the contest ahead. But beneath the speeches and declarations is another contest that will matter: the contest over what Kenyans believe to be true.
That contest is taking place in a very different information environment from previous elections. The Media Council of Kenya’s 2024 State of the Media Report found that social media had become the primary source of news for 33 percent of Kenyans, ahead of television at 31 percent and radio at 26 percent.
Yet social media was trusted less for news than television or radio. People are consuming information in one place and checking it somewhere else.
This behaviour extends beyond politics. A government statement may be followed by competing accounts online.
A corporate announcement can be discussed by employees in private channels and tested against customer experiences. A development organisation’s claims about impact can be considered alongside what beneficiaries, partners and independent observers say.
The same trust dynamics we see in politics are playing out in boardrooms, donor meetings, customer interactions and dinner-table conversations.
The official account is increasingly one input among many.
For organisations, that changes the nature of trust. People are no longer simply receiving information. They are assessing it against what they already know, what others are saying and what they experience for themselves.
The World Giving Report 2025 found that 61 percent of Kenyans want more information about charitable impact before giving more. That is a clear indication that stakeholders increasingly want organisations to substantiate their claims.
Yet trust is not disappearing. Edelman’s 2025 Kenya Trust Barometer found that 76 percent of respondents trusted NGOs and 72 percent trusted business to do what is right. People still trust organisations. But that trust is conditional, and organisations have to keep earning it.
This is where leadership matters. Organisations can treat trust as a communications problem, particularly when facing difficult decisions or reputational risk. But a well-crafted statement cannot compensate for a persistent gap between what an organisation says and what people experience. When that gap becomes visible, subsequent messages are judged against it.
This also makes the role of communications more important, not less. When everyone can publish, challenge, compare and interpret information, organisations need people who understand how information moves, how audiences make sense of it, where credibility breaks down and how leadership decisions will be received.
That role goes beyond finding the right words. Communications professionals can help leaders anticipate legitimate questions, identify where an organisation’s position may be unclear, explain difficult decisions and communicate uncertainty without creating confusion. They can also challenge the temptation to present a version of events that cannot withstand scrutiny.
That requires communications to be involved before a decision becomes an announcement. By then, much of the credibility work may already have been done, or lost.
The lesson is straightforward. Truth cannot be created by communications, and credibility cannot be sustained by messaging alone. They are shaped by leadership decisions, organisational behaviour and the consistency between what is said and what people can see for themselves.
In an information environment where every official account can be tested against another source, trust will increasingly belong to organisations whose words hold up beyond the statement itself. That makes truth a leadership responsibility and responsible communication a critical organisational capability.
The writer is a communications strategist leading and advising communications functions in the development sector
