The last man or woman a good journalist might turn to for professional advice is a preacher. A minister of the Gospel, ultimately, seeks to woo people to heaven. But a reporter is basically interested in more mundane stuff. How things are going on down here on earth. Not what mischief the Wise One in the sky might be up to.
Scribes have no professional access to angels and saints. So, they remain content trying to figure Francis “Bolingo” Atwoli, the Owner of the Earth, the Hustler-In-Chief and other characters in the political theatre whose words or even silences produce great headlines.
But, oya, Pope Francis appears to know a thing or two about the media. His latest reflections on the subject suggest he could even be familiar with the Fourth Estate in Kenya. Or do journalists everywhere sing from the same hymnbook?
“Let us look first at the great issue of news reporting,” the Pope writes in his message for the 2021 World Communications Day to be celebrated by Catholic scribes on May 16.
“Insightful voices have long expressed concern about the risk that original investigative reporting in newspapers and television, radio and web newscasts is being replaced by a reportage that adheres to a standard, often tendentious narrative.”
Vindicated by the Pope himuselufu! Hasn’t The Observer railed against the sometimes monotonous daily diet of bland content? Same faces and voices, same topics.
“This approach is less and less capable of grasping the truth of things and the concrete lives of people, much less the more serious social phenomena or positive movements at the grass roots level. The crisis of the publishing industry risks leading to a reportage created in newsrooms, in front of personal or company computers and on social networks, without ever “hitting the streets”, meeting people face to face to research stories or to verify certain situations first hand.”
A minute, Your Holiness. Allow us to illustrate your very pregnant point. “Mike Sonko’s impeachment as Nairobi governor 40 days ago has heralded a new dawn at City Hall,” The Star reported on January 28. “The swearing-in of Anne Kananu as deputy governor and her taking over as acting governor has had an immediate impact on both the executive and legislative arms of the county government.”
Is that so? What does this celebrated “new dawn”, “immediate impact” look like? What did the reporter see at City Hall to be so excited? Nothing. Spoke to a source who is not even based City Hall. “Lawyer and political analyst Danstan Omari says with the new leadership, nothing will hinder the plans President Uhuru Kenyatta has through his super project the NMS.”
So, Pope Francis, you believe scribes are relying too much on their phones, computers, expert opinion, press releases, news conferences and official statements and leaving their desks less and less to go see things for themselves?
“Unless we open ourselves to this kind of encounter, we remain mere spectators, for all the technical innovations that enable us to feel immersed in a larger and more immediate reality. Any instrument proves useful and valuable only to the extent that it motivates us to go out and see things that otherwise we would not know about, to post on the internet news that would not be available elsewhere, to allow for encounters that otherwise would never happen.”
Here you seem, Your Holiness, to have in mind especially lazy reporters, kizungu mingi TV news anchors and top editors who can talk “authoritatively” about poverty, domestic violence, teenage pregnancies, banditry in Kapedo, without ever leaving the newsroom or the leafy suburbs where some of them live? One can’t fully grasp such things remotely, you mean? Might that be why most of our news content is so bland and predictable?
“Journalism too, as an account of reality, calls for an ability to go where no one else thinks of going: a readiness to set out and a desire to see. Curiosity, openness, passion.”
Your Holiness, that message ought to be placed on a permanent billboard on Kimathi Street, outside I&M and Lion Place, on Harry Thuku Road and near every media house throughout Kenya.
“We owe a word of gratitude for the courage and commitment of all those professionals – journalists, camera operators, editors, directors – who often risk their lives in carrying out their work. Thanks to their efforts, we now know, for example, about the hardships endured by persecuted minorities in various parts of the world, numerous cases of oppression and injustice inflicted on the poor and on the environment, and many wars that otherwise would be overlooked. It would be a loss not only for news reporting, but for society and for democracy as a whole, were those voices to fade away. Our entire human family would be impoverished.”
Oh, my! There you have it folks. The Pope himself. What a man! Oh my, what a lecture! What a deep grasp of the call to tell stories than can transform the world. So, get off your desk. Stop relying on your phone, press releases. Go out and see and hear for yourself.
