Six newspaper correspondents have been sent home as Nation Media Group (NMG) retrenchment gets under way. The journalists working for various bureaus were this week given sacking letters as part of the media house’s restructuring to cut costs by maintaining a lean workforce.
The six – four from Eldoret bureau, two from Meru and one in Nairobi – form the first batch of the 25 journalists earmarked for lay off this month.
The exercise that had been planned to end by the first week of January, has been delayed due to differences between management and editorial heads. It is understood that editorial managers, mainly managing editors, are opposed to firing of more journalists which would stretch and already depleted editorial team.
Sources say managing editors are giving the layoff a cold shoulder, leaving the issue in the hands of human resources department, which may not fully understand the distribution of journalistic competencies in the newsroom. “MEs (managing editors) are missing in action,” said an insider at Nation Centre. “HR is handling the matter.”
The issue has split Nation Media Group since editorial managers feel sacking more journalists would compromise the newspapers’ coverage of events and quality of content. It is understood that the editorial team is not happy with a plan by the CEO, Mr Joe Muganda, to outsource key editorial functions like content generation as well as design and layout.
Sources say the company is already in talks with external firms to take up some editorial functions in what is seen as a way to reduce employment burden on NMG, but managing editors hold that this will not work in a media environment.
Coming hot on the heels of the implementation of the convergence model that has consolidated all its electronic, digital and print operations, another layoff is turning out to be a bitter pill for editors to swallow. The company also plans to outsource transport, people familiar with Nation say, leaving drivers jobs in limbo.
With the current stalemate in the newsroom, insiders say this could be the most difficult retrenchment in Nation’s history, since it touches at the nerve centre of its operations at a time when most newsrooms at battening down the hatches.
Under the digital-first strategy rolled out by Mr Muganda mid last year, the company has closed down radio stations and one TV – sending hundreds home – to focus its energies on monetizing digital platforms. Mr Muganda, who joined the company from East Africa Breweries, is known to be a ruthless cost-cutter and believes journalists are paid “a lot of money”, yet their services can be outsourced or given short term contracts.
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He has, in fact, frozen permanent employment in favour of short-term contracts for journalists. As Nation employees cringe at the site of a HR manager, media observers are keenly waiting to see how the company handles the layoff in an election year and with the Kenya Union of Journalists having already moved to court to stop the process.
In the past, this would have been so easy for NMG. It was a matter of picking out ‘victims’, calling them for a brief session with HR then handing them letters. Today, it’s a different ball game altogether now that editorial heads are on the side on employees.
[crp]
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