The Daily Nation carried a curious story on July 23. The paper devoted the entire Page 2 to a story about, well, the Nation Media Group. The piece of self-glorification was headed, “Nation got it right in its coverage of the multi-million shilling KPC and NYS scams.”
“Basic shoe-leather reporting and following the money trail led the Nation Media Group to break the two biggest scandals of the Jubilee Government so far,” the paper crowed.
The Nation went on to regurgitate the same details it claimed to have unearthed in March last year about shenanigans at Kenya Pipeline – as if people had not read them at the time.
The paper then proceeded to gloat about how “the Nation Investigative Desk got wind of a corruption racket running amok at the National Youth Service when many suppliers approached the newspaper months ago complaining that they had not been paid for supplies of goods and services to the agency since 2015, yet payments worth billions were being dished out to ghost businesses, sometimes several times a day.”
The story ended with this line: “Clearly, the verdict is that the NMG got it right in its coverage of the two scandals.”
Lo! What was the news here? A strange strain of gutter journalism.
Let’s forget the Nation’s allegation that KPC and NYS are the two biggest scandals of the Jubilee Government so far. Of course they aren’t. Why did the honchos on Kimathi Street decide they needed to congratulate themselves? What was going on in their heads?
It was like mocking the readers, “Hey! Do you know how good we are at what we do and yet you don’t even applaud? Shame on you!” Or, more likely, begging an uninterested audience to notice.
The standard practice is journalists and media houses keep themselves out of the news, except when it is demonstrably justified. What, pray, could have justified the Nation report about themselves running through an entire page – including pictures of their own past headlines?
The answer to these questions might be found in the on-going shifts in Kenya’s media scene. NMG has haemorrhaged top staff to the competition and they are gasping for air. The house’s independence has been openly questioned – and on strong grounds. It is no doubt their rating is sliding, fast.
NMG’s dominance in the media industry is in serious decline as competitors sharpen their knives. We wrote the other week about how Mr SK “Moneybags” Macharia is taking no prisoners in his rampage to stay far ahead of the pack.
At the same time, the media market is witnessing unprecedented fragmentation as new platforms such as vernacular radio and TV and social media go mainstream. It is no longer business as usual.
Now, Mediamax Network (owners of the People Daily, K24 TV and several other media outlets) looks like the media house to watch. Their free newspaper, People Daily, was in the news for an entire week after carrying exposés about the rot in Parliament, where MPs have become very creative in minting money without breaking a sweat.
The stories sparked uproar in the House, with National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi summoning the People Daily writers Anthony Mwangi and Dinah Ondari to appear before the Power and Privileges Committee.
The summons so rankled journalists and the public that Muturi had to reconsider it. “I have called parliamentary reporters and assured them of my support as they cover all happenings in Bunge. Seen divided opinions on the summoned reporters to appear before the Powers & Privileges Committee. Right to information is sacred, will be protected in the @NAssemblyKE,” the Speaker tweeted.
During the summit organised by the Media Council of Kenya last week, Muturi showered the People Daily reporters with praises. “Two brave journalists Dinah Ondari and Anthony Mwangi – and I say this with a lot of seriousness – because actually they drew the attention of the country to the rot that is being witnessed within the institution of Parliament,” he said.
From a nondescript rag dished out in the morning free of charge to Nairobi motorists stuck in traffic, the People Daily seems to be intent on positioning itself as a serious newspaper. And its owners have the deep pockets to push that agenda, given the hefty names associated with Mediamax.
In the week the People Daily became the subject of a national conversation, Mediamax pulled an SK Macharia. It re-launched Milele FM in a strategic move likely to give the country’s top Kiswahili language radio stations a run for their money.
The station now boasts several seasoned broadcasters, headed by Joyce Gituro previously of Radio Citizen, the market leader. Other notables Mediamax has snatched from Macharia’s Royal Media Services include Francis Luchivya, Jacky Nyaminde aka Wilbroda and Felix Odiwuor aka Jalang’o.
Mediamax is increasingly aggressive – as the previous top media houses NMG and Standard Group come under sieke (former IG David Kimaiyo, you still with us?) It will be interesting to see what shifts appear in the mediascape in the coming months.
