It is on this very space where we sadly announced the death of what used to be the most read (and listened to) part of everyday journalism: The editorial.
We all miss the good old days when the editorial would capture national aspirations instead of regurgitating what we already know.
But things started going south when we chose to go to bed with the state. These days our editorials are decidedly flat, like they were written by some bored snob careful not to tread on any big toes and in trying too hard to sit on the fence, forcing everyone to topple over with boredom.
Now, there is another death that happened in our news rooms a long time ago. We regret to announce the death of good, fresh columnists.
Except for a few good pieces on weekend editions, most of our columnists are only good at one thing: filling up pages. They, like our infamous TV analysts whose only claim to fame is making noise, are only used to give a few fellows a chance to be famous; to brag out there: ‘Mliniona kwa gazeti? (Did you see me on the newpaper?) or “Like I wrote in the newspaper the other day…..”
Let us face it – there are experts out there yearning for space to explain everything under the sun and in perfectly simple and literate English.
There are good people out there who read and listen to some of these analysts we give too much newspaper space and airtime and let out one long yawn (or may be one long fart) and curse us quietly saying: “Why did not anyone let me explain this instead of giving this idiot all this space to confuse and lie?”
The same way talk show guests should not be empty charlatans (one would have hoped there would be fresh faces on this talk-shops this year), a columnist should not be any fellow that can string words together, or some pontificating fellow with a false sense of importance.
There are folks out there who used to buy newspapers to read a certain columnist for their deep, thought-provoking arguments. But those golden days are gone: we’ve got very few columnists who can sustain an argument long enough to keep a reader glued.
The Kenyan mediascape has even fewer columnists who can effectively use three time-tested techniques of a good column: humour, satire and consistency.
The result is an unpredictable array of ‘columnists’ writing on everything – from mating habits of cockroaches to how to make air soup.
Do not even let us go to a certain page called “Letters to the editor.” The page used to be a forum for intense debates on issues of national importance (So intense would the debates run that editors would sometimes step in to call a truce or end them all together). We keep it to fill up space.
Yet many good writers out there earned their first byline with a letter to the editor.
Columnists aside, has anyone noticed the inconsistencies and confusion that is reportage of the raging pandemic? It is coronavirus in one paragraph and Covid-19 in the next. It is coronavirus in one story and corona virus in another.
It is COVID-19 in one TV blurb, Covid-19 and covid 19 in another.
Maybe folks that wrote our style books need to be woken up to decide on how to consistently call the disease -or may be a virus ate up our style books.
