Patrick Gathara

Kenya

Patrick Gathara, from Kenya, is a journalist, editor, political cartoonist, and writer. He is the senior editor for inclusive storytelling at The New Humanitarian, where he leads work on decolonizing the reporting of humanitarian crises.

Gathara was the curator-in-chief of The Elephant, an influential online Kenyan news magazine, and helped establish the Association of East African Cartoonists, serving for nearly a decade as its first general secretary. He has worked as a cartoonist and columnist for Kenyan and international publications for more than 25 years. Across journalism and satire, his work explores how narratives shape public imagination, political participation, and accountability, as well as how they can be challenged, disrupted, or reimagined.

His current focus is on the ethics of communicating humanitarian crises as democratic questions: How are affected communities represented? Whose knowledge counts? and Does communication expand or constrain participation under conditions of inequality and emergency? He has served on the board of Cartoonists Rights Network International, advised NASA Lifelines and the Humanitarian Practice Network, and cochairs the Authentic Storytelling review panel for Pledge for Change.

Based in Nairobi, Kenya, Gathara writes and speaks widely on media ethics, crisis reporting, democracy, and the role of satire in holding power to account. He has published several books, including collections of his blog posts and cartoons, as well as a short history of political cartooning in Kenya.