Come to think of it, what is the difference between what Cyprian Nyakundi does and what the Daily Nation does.
I mean, sometimes you look at some of the articles that appear on the Daily Nation, and you know for sure that someone paid for them (in one way or the other) in order to destroy someone else.
Like for instance, yesterdays and today’s series on Nairobi Womens Hospital. The information may be true, but you can sense that there is also an element of someone who refused to do something. If it was Cyprian Nyakundi posting those articles on his blog, it would have been said that he is fighting the hospital. But now that it is the Daily Nation posting them, it is alright…
Or if you take the series of anti-sonko articles that the Daily Nation, allegedly under Kificho’s instructions ran…
So what is difference between nyakundi and daily nation? aren’t they all guns for hire?
Nyakundi is a hustler. Many people have taken him to court, withdrew the cases, and paid him handsomely. money is not given, it is taken. Nairobi ni nono sana kwa yule kijana ana akili
I mean just the other day these guys launched a million dollar printing press probably the first of it’s kind in East Africa… and you are talking of bribing them?!
And what would they gain by openly maligning a hospital?
Aga Khan inamaanisha “king of the kings” or Elder King. Although the British monarch designated him a “Prince” . (Although he is a king without a realm/kingdom.)
Like i have said here before, publishing a news article is not as simple as you guys make it to appear.
You guys always presume that the journalist “owns” the paper and can just publish whatever he or she desires and that is not really the case.
Like every organisation there is a chain of command. The journalist has several bosses including managing editors. And many times he is assigned the story he is to cover by his direct boss. And these editors will read the story before publishing! They will know immediately that their guy has been compromised.
And before the story is published they pass it through the in house lawyer(s) to make sure haitaleta shida baadaye.
So gazeti sio kama ktalk where we come and shit whatever is on our minds!
There are numerous checks and balances. And if indeed you were to bribe for a really hot story labda upatie hadi group MD, juu he has final say on the really hot stories. And he in turn has to answer to shareholders why the paper has become compromised.
Actually, getting an article to be published in the nation is much easier than you think. You just have to pay the local journalist well and have the local intel guy to agree to whatever you want to push and it is done. You saw it even recently, with the case of the teacher who was burnt in kitui how easy it is to compromise the media and a skew a narrative. Those editorial guys are too fat to care for anything unless it is extremely scandalous. For the small issues, you don’t bribe Nation, you bribe the journalists. For the big things (like the anti-sonko reports) you talk to the MD. I hope you can understand. The media is effectively a fourth arm of government, with the dirt that comes with that both at the local level and at the top level.
Kwani you think everyone in Kenya is a thug? Kuwa serious. And you seem to think that kenyan media is only Nation, standard, star etc.
Umenoa. BBC, CNN and reuters have major presence in kenya. And Nation for instance buys news from them and vice versa. And there are many other correspondents covering kenyan stories.
What that simply means is that if you work for NMG and you are bribed and write a false story, there is another journalist at Reuters or Standard who will pick up the same story and expose you!
Hio ndio inaitwa free media. So if you were to bribe you’d have to bribe them all!
Because today Nation will cover your story, Standard will then call you up for a follow up, Citizen would also like a confirmation and they’ll come with a reuters photographer, K24 are also interested…
Are you saying that you are going to bribe all these people including the cameramen?!
Na ujue wote wako in competition. Standard would be very happy to show that Nation is a liar.
And at the same time you have akina Alai (new age media) sniffing around.
Bribes dont always have to be monetary, my frend. That is why, in my original post, i mentioned paid ‘one way or the other’. the media can be bribed through advertising contracts etc.
unfortunately, once a narrative takes root, people (including competing media outlets) tend to go with it, rather than investigating its truthfulness. that is the way we are created as humans and it applies even in other fields [like if you take the medical field and look at how the hiv/aids narrative took root).
Anyway, my point/observation was that what the daily nation does[in some cases] is not very different from what cyprian nyakundi does.
Then with regard to ati competing media, if you are a keen observer, you will have noticed that the kenyan media is increasing operating as if it is a single unit. You watch citizen news, ntv news, ktn news, k24 news, and you realize that the news items covered are the same! Then you wonder where the synchronization took place! As kenya turns into an authoritarian state, there are some interesting developments taking place for the keen observer. Ultimately once you get the intel guys, you get the whole media (because they control the media, for you increasingly can’t hold a senior media job without being connected to the intel system)…
Anyway, deep politics.
With all the corruption cases they have exposed in Kenya? Hapana.
And of course they had the opportunity to eat and kill all those stories but they did not.
Give these guys some credit. Walifuata Ng’ang’a nothing came of it… wakafuata obado…wakafuata waiguru… it’s a thankless job in kenya.
Kenyan journalists hujaribu. These guys exposed corruption during the Nyayo era when people used to be ‘disappeared’. Even when people were being jailed in the 80s they didn’t relent.
About being bribed with advertising contracts hapo pia umekosea. When you go to ntv to advertise you don’t talk to ken mijungu unaenda huko chini kwa marketing dept.
And anyway Ken mijungu would then tell you, “Hio contract ya advertising itaenda kwa kampuni sio kwangu!”
This is illogical. What you are saying is that waiguru should’ve called SK macharia to bribe him with an ad contract to kill nys scandal… mambo zingine ni illogical. And I don’t think adverts fall under her mandate anyway.
Well, it is slightly complicated but i hope you can understand. Just look at how, in the 80s and 90s, most ads used to go to standard. And how today, most ads go to nation. Or how in the days of ‘second liberation fight’ the nation used to take a patently anti-government stance and how today it takes a basically pro-establishment stand. or how mucheru established the government advertising agency when uhuru decided to ‘revisit’ the media. So the media is a business like any other…
It surprises me that you think the nmg is beyond being bribed :oops: