A recent story by The Star about retired Nairobi Archbishop John Cardinal Njue was unabashed adulation. It had little to do with journalism.
The March 29 story by Gordon Osen, titled, “The day furious Cardinal Njue drove alcoholic priest to rehab,” started off with a hyperbole, which should have been a red flag for any seasoned sub-editor.
The cardinal, the story started, “is a man who takes years to get angry, according to his biography.”
First, biography by whom? Only once and in passing, which many a reader must have missed, is the author mentioned, implicitly. It’s delayed, in paragraph 12, that the alcoholic priest, identified as Daniel Ngure “told biographer Waithaka Waihenya.”
Not once is the date or context of the biography provided.
Second, even men in the roster for sainthood get confronted by the “devil’s advocate,” an official appointee by Rome, no less, to dig out unsavoury traits of a candidate for sainthood. And those traits are indeed unearthed, as proof that the saints were men — or women — who walked the earth, not angels.
Yet, in a journalism piece, Cardinal Njue has no blemish?
But if you thought the hyperbole intro was just a little hook to draw you into a solid story, you were quickly disappointed. The meat of the story was even more Kumbaya.
“When some of his priests were caught up in sex scandals, he would commit them to rehabilitative processes, rather than sack them…” And that’s a good thing? Apparently yes, from the church’s perspective, Osen should have said.
For priests who “vehemently resented Njue,” the cardinal ignored them. But when they got ill or needed help, Njue would be the first at their side. Priests who opposed the cardinal’s policies are called “incompetent.” The Cardinal “kept in office some priests whom others would have fired or demoted.” Again, is that even a good thing?
If this was a book review, it disappointed. A book review is, by its very nature, a critical analysis. Not an “aye-aye-sir” piece of writing with not a word in disagreement. Or a whiff of counterargument.
This was a one-sided story without head or tail. And The Star not only passed it as a piece of journalism, it posted the story online above the fold. Why?
