“Game lapses a wake-up call” (Saturday Nation editorial, September 4, 2021).
Editorials are a media house’s mouthpiece. As such they are supposed to be deep, gripping, as objective as humanly possible, dispassionate and thought-provoking.
A good editorial is arguably the best agenda-setting tool for a media house, addressing, not just a small part of the society, but a nation’s conscience.
So what is agenda-setting in this Saturday Nation’s second editorial? Nothing. It lacks in depth and objectivity. It reads more like a letter to the editor written from one of those heated know-it-all debates about soccer inside some dingy bar in K-South.
Hear this: “A keen observer must have realised that Kenya, ranked 104th, struggled to make impact….”
“Keen observer” here lacks all keenness in terms of objectivity. It is one of those generalised clichés that people use to bulldoze everyone into their highly subjective line of thought. What qualifies the writer to be a “keen observer?”
Hear: “The team’s coaches could do well to rectify glaring mistakes in the team such as poor ball possession, poor passes, and inability to take advantage of scoring chances”.
Helloo? Are we reading an editorial of a national newspaper here or listening to the ranting of one of those fellows who, frothing in the mouth, curses and yells at the TV while watching a soccer game, never mind that he or she has never touched a soccer ball all hisor her life?
Hear: “Although playing on home ground, some of the Kenyan players struggled to perform….”
Wait, whoever wrote this editorial must either be a world-class soccer coach wasting his talent in the newsroom or an over-opinionated soccer fanatic – the kind that gets hot under the collar in debates over which is better between Man U and Chelsea.
Be that as it may, this editorial is best placed in the sports pages as a letter to the editor. Because we are being subjective here, we are being too opinionated here. And we are doing this when we have not tabled our credentials to justify the high moral pedestal from where we play judge and jury over a highly professional matter.
We are, in a word, being emotional and emotions take away objectivity, which ought to be the hallmark of a good editorial.
It gets even more personal: “…Coach Jacob Muleee introduced new players in midfield, but the team struggled in the absence of Antony Akumu and Ayub Timbe.”
Now, wait a minute, editorials, in sacred journalistic tradition, address weighty national matters; matters of great public interest, usually involving persons, happenings and events at the heart of the drama of national life.
Persons mentioned in editorials are usually public figures who need no reference – not those ordinary fellows that whoever is writing the editorial meets or hears about in some bar in downtown Nairobi.
In other words, personal feelings, whims and fantasies should not be allowed in editorials. As such, if whoever penned this editorial feels that Antony Akumu and Ayub Timbe (who the writer imagined every Kenyan knows) are the best soccer players in the world after Pele and Maradona, these ‘feelings’ are entirely personal.
They clearly do not, as editorials are supposed to be, reflect the views of an entire media house or a majority of Kenyans out there on the streets.
We could go on and on about this particular editorial, but it all boils down to one thing: Another eulogy for our dead or dying editorials, those good old voices that firmly set and guided the public agenda when they were penned by broadminded, thought-provoking journalism titans. There was a time you bought a newspaper for two reasons only – its headline and its editorial.
Not so anymore!
*****
Sin bin: “Before they were released they were given a proper beating leaving them injured…” (Nation, September 4). What is a ‘proper’ beating?
“We had been seeking an out of court settlement with the Tanzanians but they hardened their stand…” Exactly how hard can a ‘stand’ be?
