Why The Media In Kenya Is Losing It

Not too long ago here in Kenya, what went public from any of the traditional media outlets was met with reverence, a 'gospel truth' status badge for anything churned out by them. Today, plenty has changed.

Let me start by giving a thumbs-up to the many journalists, editors, producers, and support staff that leave home every day to keep us abreast with the happenings around us. They have a high sense of dedication to country and respective media houses.

So, why are we praising them when they have lost it? A cocktail of circumstances, some self-inflicted and others beyond their grasp and control, have conspired to leave the media with egg on the face.

Print media is barely surviving as it is transmitted through the most perishable means—paper that is worth much less than the printed word which again has no value beyond its sale-by date. Radio and television sets keep their financial purchase value beyond the news of the day and will be useful when the day's paper turns to a meat wrapper at a butchery near you.

Technologically, so much is up against traditional media but these changes have not hurt enough for us to see strategic responses from media houses. What we've witnessed are knee-jerk reactions from outfits led by brave natives repeatedly bitten but not getting shy at all.

The recent layoffs were a belated response to dwindling advertising revenues from the government. Had the government, that in nature is a slow adapter to new technologies, maintained its big spending on media space and time, the media houses would still be unmoved by the changes happening worldwide. They had borrowed the financial sector thinking that the government is a sure bet as it is a risk-free entity to invest in. It's time to cope without copying blindly.

A strategic move would be one we wouldn't have noticed the bulky staff offloads, suddenly, they were not needed. It would have happened so smoothly behind the scenes gradually and steadily that any let-go situation would happen as soon as that resource became irrelevant in the new direction—exit parties notwithstanding.

But from C-suit relationship management efforts necessitating dining and wine-ing with the ministers, principal secretaries, and state corporation executives, the more practical meet-the-hustlers events are a hard switch for many. The money is in the crowds.

Mainstream media were also wrongfooted by their open bias for one side of the political divide. Their horse lost the race and now what appear as brave faces are actually clueless gazes akin to deers caught in the headlights of a fast-approaching vehicle. They are now all on earth with everyone else smutting from the harsh choices presented by life in a manner that we never knew of before.

When strategies fail, tactics kick in. But it cannot be tactic after tactic for days on end for they are short-term in nature. Dreams cannot be sustained by tactics but by well-thought-out strategies.

The media has maintained its "hit them hard" stance with the new administration as was the case while in the trenches. Pettiness has prominence within its columns. For instance, one paper has a problem with the venue of the government's recent retreat at the Mt. Kenya Safari Club in Nanyuki. They would perhaps prefer if it was held at any of the Nyamakima joints, in keeping with the hustler spirit which they twist to give ridicule undeserved space. This is the seat of government we are talking about and not a seat reserved in a vehicle headed upcountry or downtown Nairobi.

The media has lost evenhandedness at a time when any Wanjiku, Moraa, and Fatuma with a smartphone is their competitor. And when Wanjiku likes the alignment resulting from the retreat, mainstream media have stuck to the gossip of where, who was with whom, and with the stuff that cannot affect the price of sugar or maize in the country.

And so we ask. Was the right-thinking lot of staffers offloaded and the wrong ones retained to please the bosses? And which bosses? for the real ones are the readers and viewers out there.

The media seems to have believed in the songs they air. Many of them have lyrics that say: "I have lost my mind thinking about you...." please awaken from your hibernation mode and strategize once more. We want meaningful content and not meaningless contests.