President William Ruto met Jubilee Party “troops” at State House Nairobi, on Monday, January 23, led by nominated MP Sabina Chege and EALA legislator Kanini Kega.
KTN reported that the meeting took place “behind closed doors at the House on the Hill”, but managed to get a source who told them the visitors were ready to abandon Jubilee and join Kenya Kwanza.
A journalist is driven by the desire – and professional duty – to know and tell the truth about matters of public. He or she knows this is often difficult, but always possible. It is your job to get “behind closed doors”.
To merely reproduce official communications or, worse, cry out to your audience that you couldn’t find out the truth because a meeting was held behind closed doors, or someone refused to talk to you, is lame.
“On Monday, the MPs were silent on what transpired in the meeting, with calls and text massages going unanswered,” The Star reported about the State House meeting.
“Let me not comment anything for now, please,” Lamu Senator Joseph Githuku told Lion Place on the phone.
“Calls and messages sent to Sabina, Kega, Mwenje, Kiaraho and Mwago went unanswered.”
Oh, really! Is this journalism? What is your reader supposed to do with this “news”? Is your reader now better informed about the Jubilee leaders’ State House meeting by knowing that sources declined to talk to you about it?
You failed.
KTN managed to talk to confidential sources at the meeting. The same Sabina Chege who reportedly declined to talk to The Star on the phone told The Standard that, “We had a good discussion with the President, and we will work together.” The paper also quoted other sources.
Do you seriously believe that a source you have never met, never built a working relationship with, is going to spill the beans to you about a closed-door meeting, if you simply rang them up or texted? How many calls and texts from unknown people does a politician get on any day?
Come on! Get your, eh, what-is-it-called, off the office swivel chair and go cultivate sources. You are seated there reading tweets of a meeting at the House on the Hill, or perhaps a press release, and then you ask around for an MP’s phone number and start calling and texting for a comment. When you get no response, you publish that. Journalism gani hii?
Gerrit: There is nothing more important in newsgathering than meeting a source face to face, flesh and bones. You don’t build rapport through the phone. By all means, meet the person and never waste that opportunity to market yourself to him or her and your media house.
A lot of people huku nje are scared of journalists – and for good reason. It is not just that scribes are always snooping around for scandal; some of them have done horrible work and dragged the reputation of the profession in the mud. You have a duty to rebuild public trust in the Fourth Estate at every opportunity.
Weeks back, an editor shared with colleagues the following story:
“I was at a seminar last year where officials from the health ministry were gathered, and over lunchtime one of them spoke passionately about how he never talks to journalists and was in fact annoyed he had been dragged away from his research to attend a conference with them.
“Why, because he said you tell them one thing and they report another, and it has really affected his colleagues in the past. So suspicious was he of journalists that he caught himself halfway and said, ‘I hope you are not recording’.”
A pity. Because they have never been news subjects, most journalists have no idea how terrifying and ruinous it can be to be misquoted. People who are important to you are reading, some two continents away, with their eyebrows raised and wondering, “He really said that!” And you have to spend days, even months, explaining you were misquoted by an inept reporter.
For this reason, every journalist must build public trust in our work. Talk to sources, create a massive trove of reliable contacts everywhere, from State House to brothels in Busia, not just to get good stories but also to win the confidence of sources and audiences.
There is no story that can’t be reported for lack of sources.