Perched at the Daily Nation, young journalist shares a bird’s eye view of the Kenyan media landscape
Photo: Arthur Buliva (Original)
In July 2008, I travelled to Kenya to spend eight months at the Daily Nation, the Nation Media Group’s flagship newspaper. Not long before my departure, I had graduated from Columbia University’s journalism programme and received a “Young Professionals in Media” fellowship from Aga Khan Foundation Canada and the Canadian International Development Agency. This meant that my first job out of school would be as a news reporter on the streets of Nairobi, a thrilling — but nonetheless daunting — prospect.
Professionally, it seemed like a good challenge. Journalists are often placed in unfamiliar situations and told by their editors to write about new topics at short notice. Good journalists learn quickly and can assemble a bird’s-eye view of complex issues and disciplines. In my case, I had never been to Kenya before, and I saw this as an opportunity to study the country’s current affairs. I also hoped to understand the reasons why it endured dramatic and bloody unrest following a disputed presidential contest in December 2007.
On a personal level, I hoped to explore the part of the world where my parents came from. My father grew up in Zanzibar; in 1969, he received a scholarship to attend college in the United States. My mother lived in Kampala, Uganda, and left the country with her family under Idi Amin. I also looked forward to learning more about how the Aga Khan Development Network and its portfolio of companies — especially the Nation Media Group — were contributing to East Africa’s economic progress.
Learning and working
The Nation Media Group`s publications widely read throughout East Africa. Photo: Nation Media Group
On my first day at the Nation Centre, an iconic building in downtown Nairobi with two cylindrical towers and horizontal gray stripes, I toured the entire Nation Media Group. The company started small but now offers a variety of products besides the Daily Nation and Taifa Leo, its Kiswahili-language counterpart. These include the East African, a weekly round-up of regional news; Business Daily, a paper focused on business and finance; NTV, a television channel; and two radio stations, EasyFM and QFM. The firm also has distribution and courier divisions, as well as sister companies in Tanzania and Uganda.
When the tour ended, I settled into my desk at the Daily Nation. From the middle of the floor, three news editors steered the ship: Eric Shimoli, a man with sharp news judgment who barked orders all morning, Njeri Rugene, who knew the town’s power players and high-fived anyone who brought back good intel, and Emman Omari, who laughed loudly whenever he read an amusing fact or story. Sub-editors sat to their right, reporters to their left. Members of the latter group were invariably in their twenties, and included young men like Kibiwott Koros from the Rift Valley, who wanted me to try drinking cow’s blood (I never did), and young women like Jillo Kadida from eastern Kenya, who constantly “scooped” the competition and recently won an international journalism award.
The first month or two, I shadowed these reporters, attending press conferences with them and slowly learning the ropes. I’d spend one day at the police headquarters or the foreign affairs ministry, another at the United Nations compound or the local offices of Coca-Cola or Safaricom. Soon, I started attending the so-called Kriegler Commission, a series of public hearings on electoral reform overseen by an impartial South African judge; it was a chance to hear about the violence that rocked Kenya before my arrival, as well as proposals to encourage peaceful elections going forward.
Journalism in Kenyan society
Even as Western publications face declining sales and online competition, many Kenyans continue to rely on the printed word for their news. Photo: Nation Media Group
As I found my sea legs, I started going out on my own. I was the first person to investigate a string of daylight robberies in central Nairobi; I connected the dots and pushed the police to boost security, benefiting the city’s small businessmen. Some of my other projects were team efforts aimed at helping poor people on Nairobi’s outskirts, like factory workers in Ruiru Town who’d been fired for joining a union, or farmers in Ruai whose plots of land had been unfairly confiscated by one large developer. I even wrote a few stories tied to the election of US President Barack Obama, whose father was Kenyan; one of these was the 16 March 2009 cover story of Junior Scholastic magazine.
In many ways, the Nation was an impressive place to work. At a time when Western publications face declining sales and online competition, many Kenyans still rely on the printed word and the radio dial for their news. As I walked to work every morning along Moi Avenue, it made me happy to see small crowds gathered around newspaper vendors, seeking a glimpse of the day’s headlines. The advertising climate seemed favourable — in fact, the paper was filled with too many ads — and the company was adopting text messaging and social networking to reach new audiences. It even hosted sports tournaments for its employees and offered some of them retirement plans.
Editorially, I also liked what I saw. The Kenyan media consistently sheds light on important issues like AIDS, corruption and climate change. Reporters, not just at the Nation, are gradually becoming experts in certain areas: some focus on the court system or crime, others on Parliament, agriculture or the business community.
Still, the Kenyan journalists I met saw room for improvement. Eager to strengthen their profession and its practices, these journalists raised a number of points during our conversations. Some felt there wasn’t enough communication in the newsroom; their stories, once filed, rarely elicited feedback. Others wanted to see the publication use photography more effectively and infographics more creatively. A few colleagues seemed desperate to get out of the city; they thought coverage was too Nairobi-centric and wanted to chase stories in more remote — but equally important — parts of the country.
The people’s press
Members of the Kenyan public, too, made a number of suggestions when I talked to them. They said they noticed news stories getting shorter and shorter, even though they wanted to read longer, magazine-length features that could better educate them about multifaceted events and issues. Readers also lamented the overwhelming focus on political stories and a heavy reliance on “official” sources like government ministries, foreign diplomats and the United Nations; instead, they wanted us to find stories at the grassroots level and interview ordinary wananchi more often. Finally, the public believed some Kenyan media companies exacerbated the country’s election violence by sensationalising it and, in some instances, taking sides. Mostly, this charge was directed at small, vernacular radio stations rather than trusted institutions like the Nation. Still, the crisis dealt the entire profession in Kenya a blow.
But it’s important not to miss the forest for the trees. I’m confident that the Nation Media Group will meet these challenges and break new ground during its next 50 years. It has played a key national role since its inception, still resonates with Kenyans today and will continue to be central to the country’s (and the region’s) narrative and discourse in the foreseeable future. As the West debates the fate of print and conventional media, the Nation Media Group seems to be paying close attention and taking proactive steps. As long as it sticks to its vision — “to be the media of Africa, for Africa” — the horizon will always look bright.
Jami Makan is a journalist with SmartMoney Magazine in New York.
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