CONVEYOR-BELT?: Hussein Mohamed from Citizen visited her house and conducted what appeared like a stage-managed interview where she answered her own questions to sanitise her name.
Former Devolution Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru has now become Kenya’s most headline-catching name. As a darling of the Fourth Estate she sold stories like hot cakes.
Whatever she said ended up on the front pages and also as the very first items in both TV and radio news bulletins. When she called a press conference to ostensibly expose corruption in her ministry she was reported as a paragon of virtue. When she called another one to announce her professed resignation from the cabinet no one among the journalists in attendance suspected that she could, in fact, have been fired.
When her house was searched by anti-corruption officers her formidable lawyer arduously led journalists to present stories about her as a victim of witch-hunting incompetence.
Then there was an otherwise outstanding and respected Hussein Mohamed from Citizen visiting her house and conducting what appeared like a stage-managed interview where she answered her own questions to sanitise her name.
Now she has sworn an affidavit which has left very important personalities in political quagmire. Yet all this time she has successfully led the entire Fourth Estate by its nose and made it report exactly what she has always wanted.
This is what I have always described as reportorial conveyor-belt journalism. When will the media dig deep in all the conflicting sworn affidavits to verify the truth and then PUBLISH AND BE DAMNED!
Otherwise the faces of all journalists in Kenya are wet with rotten eggs dripping all over the place!
ALSO IN MEDIA >>
- Business Daily swallows Daily Nation business desk
- Standard suspends journalist named in Waiguru bribery mix
- Mediamax buys Ebru TV in expansion drive
The writer, a former journalism lecturer, is a renowned media expert.
Leave a comment