One of the core mandates of the Fourth Estate is to inform the public on matters public interest in a clear and professional way. Information should be well researched and presented in manner that can be easily understood by consumers of news. It should be the truth not mere speculation, like the tall tales flooding social media or baseless bar/salon/chama talk. The media enjoys public trust only when it operates professionally.
A media house puts its reputation at risk when it feeds the public with poorly edited footage of important news. It is also annoying when journalists don’t take their time to ensure the public does not miss important information.
KBC Channel 1, the state-owned television, failed terribly when they aired a pre-recorded clip of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s message to the nation on December 31, 2018. The clip had a lot of lip sync (synchronized lip movements with recorded speech) which failed to match.
What a shame! That was a pre-recorded message. The scribes at Broadcasting House had the time to edit the work before airing.
The shoddy job provoked a heated discussion on social media, with some viewers blaming KBC for failing to do a professional presentation.
Joy Jumbo The only problem is it says they never made an attempt to intervene, it continued to air live with mistakes. Someone should have withdrawn if from live with an apology or smth. The whole team continued as normal business. And if the board sat to discuss it, then the team definitely was found liable. Sometimes gvt offices has this laxity and it needs to go…. Let’s jst pray they recover their jobs after the suspension
Tony Otieno It was really embarrassing from the national broadcaster.
Joseph Mureithi Laxity .. presidents should get the best….government corporations aren’t the best
The clip led to suspension of nine journalists who were found culpable. The decision by acting managing director Samuel Otieno suggests the journalists did not perform their work well.
How does a whole nine people fail so spectacularly? How did they get their jobs? What sort of journalists are they?
Otieno kicked the lot out for three months, at the end of which period they should present their sorry selves on Harry Thuku Road to explain. The suspension letters dated January 11 said they will be paid half salary.
It will be interesting to see what the KBC Channel 1 bosses unearth during their investigation of the glaring failure. Who allowed the trashy job to go on air? Is he/she/they among the nine?
Certain media houses, including KBC, are on their deathbed due to lack of enough money to pay their staff decent salaries and to cater for operations, all which can result in poor output. Staff should be motivated to perform well through better terms of service and provision of quality equipment.
The government ought to rummage through its coffers and give KBC the support it needs to deliver its mandate to the Kenyan people as a public broadcaster.
1 thought on “Nine kicked out for shoddy job at KBC TV”
Why blame the hapless journalist for something purely management? Surely everybody knows what ails KBC. Demotivated and poorly remunerated staff, aged equipment, disjointed management, crippling debts, corruption etc. That fiasco on the President speech is a wake up call for the government to aid it’s national broadcaster.
For crying out round, cut the innocent journalists some slack.