The year 2025 is on its last lap. In less than five weeks, Kenyans will sing, dance, hug and make merry to welcome a brand new 2026. They will abandon their plans and dreams for 2025, and create new hopes. Positivism for the new year will be tempered with pragmatism, based on how 2025 worked out or what it delivered or did not.
Journalists, as always, will report what was, could have been, should have been in 2025 and maybe, could be or shall be in 2026. They will be at parties, on the road, in the neighbourhood, at the office, doing what they always do: chasing after stories, converting them into news, and transmitting them to their audiences. Indeed, enough journalists won’t be on holiday at all; or, they will be, to use the misnomer, on a working holiday.
While journalists will be interviewing Kenyans or researching end-of-the-year stories or tapping away at the keyboard or hurrying after a subject with a camera and a microphone, who will tell their story? But, if the long-suffering journos’ stories won’t be told, who will give Christmas presents or New Year gifts?
The media deserves not just recognition but also rewards. It is not enough to be recognised as the reporter, camerawoman or broadcaster of the year. The bonus, if ever it comes, is simply a one-off event in the year whose value disappears in the costs of the after-event party. The media should give its workers more more concrete and valuable gifts.
Let us give our journalists the gift of safety. Whether it is from the police officers, who sometimes harass reporters, or politicians or citizens, let us make journos feel safe and free to do their work. Let us also give the women and men of the press the opportunity to tell our own – Kenyan stories. Invite the press into our homes, churches, festivals and other occasions, and make them to ‘feel at home,’ give them the information they seek and be co-producers with them.
But the most important gift we could give the journos, as they report this festive season, is to share with them our dreams, collective or individual. For they too are humans, Kenyans, workers, family people, dreamers etc. Let’s share with them the gift of humanity.
