Sometimes there is no story to tell. No one should be killed for that. Easy, the world as we know it will not end. Go look for stories elsewhere.
Who put it in the minds of some scribes that a politician must make news whatever he (yes, he) says? It is no wonder our news is full of asinine tales of what some public figure said (often) or did (rare).
Can we start by agreeing that public figures have roles and it is on the basis of performance or non-performance of those roles that they should interest journalists? Why exactly should the public be necessarily interested in the fact that some public figure drank tea at a restaurant?
Such non-news bastardises journalism. The overall impact on the population is that if one were foolish enough to devote themselves to gobbling up all the news everyday, they would suffer serious intellectual constipation.
It is not the duty of a journalist to see news in everything and nothing.
Professional gatekeeping ensures news is issue-based. The tragedy is, journalism has gone to bed with PR. People in power (private or public) use media coverage to market themselves. The Observer will soon examine in detail this unholy matrimony between journalism and PR.
On April 24, the Star published online a non-story about Deputy President William Ruto. He had flown that afternoon to Baringo County to deliver his condolences to the family of the late Jonathan Moi, son of the former president.
“Ruto dodges Moi, visits late son’s home”, read the headline.
Now, that word dodge. How did the Star know Ruto deliberately avoided Jonathan’s father? Here:
“Unlike President Uhuru Kenyatta who visited retired President Moi at his Kabarak home in Nakuru county on Monday, the DP opted to visit Jonathan’s home in Kabimoi almost 54km away from Kabarak.”
That qualifies as dodging. Well, what if Uhuru and Ruto had agreed, for whatever reason, that one would go to Kabarak and the other to Jonathan’s home? How come it was Ruto who represented his boss at Jonathan’s funeral?
Nope, such thinking would ruin a good story. So, Ruto dodged Moi.
The entire piece was 448 words long, but the story about Ruto was less than 100, in fact 94 words. The rest of the report (354 words) was devoted to an incident last year when Ruto was apparently “blocked” from seeing Moi in Kabarak.
What was the point of this regurgitation of old stuff? A line or two of the background would have sufficed. But 354 words as context for a story only 94 words long?
What kind of journalism is that? What is its purpose?
That amounts to inventing a story where there is none. Mind, the people who read the Star are smart.
1 thought on “If there’s no story, don’t create one”
Journalists must come out of that attitude of personalizing and creation of stories. We should endavor to tell stories as they are objectively and factually.