There are growing studies from different quarters to explain the falling consumption levels of media products here and abroad.
Why, the researches ask, are the legacy media suffering a drastic drop in the number of those reading newspapers, watching television and listening to the radio?
Varied answers have been proffered, including – but not restricted to – these: high costs; media biases; bended ownership; new media; and long, winding, detailed and boring content.
Some perceptive media consumers complain that stories on several platforms no longer have them in mind as to anticipate their questions and provide cogent, elaborate, and timely answers. That there is so much gibberish in content as to fail to respond to the germane questions: So what? Why should I care? Who are the winners and losers? Where do I get help? Who is next?
Yet others are more candid. They say that facts and figures in a good number of legacy media – where they exist – suffer from a disease they have labelled the Jumbled Story Syndrome (JSS).
Last week, we sought to dig into this debate. We picked on an event to ferret the manifestations of the so-called JSS, if at all.
On Wednesday, Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi spoke in Naivasha during a workshop for newly appointed board members of state corporations. He addressed the participants on a wide array of issues touching on their roles – as the thought leaders of those entities – and challenged them to style up or ship out.
It is not possible, nay, imaginable, that all journalists covering the event would carry similar stories. However, it is expected that whatever angle a reporter took would be treated well. Deeply. Satisfactorily. Competently. Professionally.
Our analysis, based on random sampling of media reports, proved right some critics who have roundly dismissed such stories as suffering from loose ‘furnituring’.
For example, The Star ran with a flavourless heading: “Parastatals should help in reviving economy – Mudavadi.” Pray, what should the entities be doing other than contributing to the economy of the country?
In journalism, any story must make a claim, a promise, or an allegation in the first paragraph. Listen to The Star in the introduction to this story: “Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi has urged state corporation boards to help the government resuscitate the economy under the Kenya Kwanza bottom-up transformation agenda.”
The writer, Perpetua Etyang, does not immediately tell readers what’s this “Kenya Kwanza Bottom-Up Transformation Agenda”, but rushes to say where Mudavadi was speaking, and whomsoever he was addressing.
Five paragraphs later, the Prime Cabinet Secretary is allowed a quote to explain things. “You have to cultivate the culture of the Kenya Kwanza government; pursuit of excellence guided by the principles and values of professionalism, integrity, loyalty, positive work ethics, results productivity and discipline,” he [Mudavadi] said.
Immediately after that, there is the small matter of pending bills. We are told that state corporations had not been paying suppliers for goods and services rendered: “Mudavadi also urged state entities to clear pending bills for contractors.” However, this is left hanging in a solidary paragraph seven. How much is owed to whom? We don’t know.
Next is another, different idea; this one that state corporations were overly dependent on the exchequer for budgetary spoon feeding. “In 2021/22, the total budget estimates for state corporations were in excess of Sh320 billion. During the same period, they had a maximum fiscal exposure of Sh1.3 trillion,” Mudavadi is reported as saying.
What’s “fiscal exposure”? We aren’t told. Exactly how much were the entities allocated in the 2021/21 budget? The Prime Cabinet Secretary says “in excess of Sh320.” This could be any amount of money!
The story moves on, telling readers how Mudavadi reminded the parastatal honchos of the government’s haste to transform the entities, “since Kenya Vision 2030 expires in seven years’ time.” Really? Who didn’t know that this is 2023, and that there are seven years left to hit 2030?
Come over, the People Daily. And bring along your 10-paragraph story, with a title: “Make profit or face privatisation, Mudavadi tells heads of agencies.” Let the story flow.
Para One: “State corporations in the country have been urged to support the government in economic resuscitation or risk privatisation.”
Para Two: “Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi while opening an induction workshop for board members of state corporations in Naivasha said the members had a duty to turn things to profitability.”
Para Three: “This comes amid a report from the Treasury that some state corporations were making huge losses, despite the government pumping in more funds.”
No story there, but, wait a minute …
In paragraph five, there is something that promises to be a story: “According to Mudavadi, 79 state corporations are commercial in nature and their main reason for existence is for-profit through dividends to the National Treasury.”
“Unfortunately, only about 5 per cent of the 79 agencies pay any such dividends. In fact, over 40 per cent of the commercial state corporations turn to the exchequer for financial subsidy,” Mudavadi is quoted as saying.
Which are some of these parastatals? How much did they contribute to the exchequer over the last financial year? We don’t know.
Such is the situation in which media consumers have found themselves: Stories promising so much but fulfilling nothing, if at all; stories wallowing in generalities and marketplace information; stories touching this and touching that … yet lacking in depth and width.
And just like that, those fingering media content for acute Jumbled Story Syndrome have been vindicated.
