To play fair, I am giving up this space
What you need to know:
- However, I relinquish this column with nostalgia. I’ve been writing it for the last 11 years, starting in 2003, while I was still working with the UN Information Centre in Gigiri.
- I had some world-class teachers, including Prof Jackton Ojwang, now a Supreme Court judge. A study of law provided me with transferable skills that I could use in journalism.
To play fair, I’m letting go this valuable space. As you may already know, I’ve been appointed NMG’s Public Editor (also known as news ombudsman).
A Public Editor is the readers’ representative and advocate in the newsroom. So I can’t continue to write this column and at the same time be the Public Editor. It would be almost like running with the hare and hunting with the hounds.
However, I relinquish this column with nostalgia. I’ve been writing it for the last 11 years, starting in 2003, while I was still working with the UN Information Centre in Gigiri.
The column was known as the “Gigiri Notebook”. When I left the UN, the opinion editor of the Saturday Nation, suggested another label, “Fair Play”. It fitted perfectly.
I’ve written more than 500 articles ranging in subject matter from why people unsex their dogs to why the death sentence should be abolished. Most of the articles, however, have been on legal issues as I developed an interest in law.
I found there is a compelling interface between journalism, law and justice.
Consequently, I studied law at the University of Nairobi on the Parklands Campus in the evenings. During the four long years I spent nearly one million bob of hard-earned money to pay the fees. But it was worth it.
TRANSFERABLE
I had some world-class teachers, including Prof Jackton Ojwang, now a Supreme Court judge. A study of law provided me with transferable skills that I could use in journalism.
In writing this column I came to appreciate even more keenly the need for accuracy, balance, fairness, and ethics, even in this cramped space of about 500 words. My readers did not spare me when I said things that upset them.
For example, when I wrote, “Homosexuality un-African? It’s a Big Lie”, I stirred up a hornet’s nest. My wife, my pastor, and some members of the public wanted to hang me from the nearest tree for daring to say homosexuality is “as African as Ngong Hills”.
Another article, “Sheng is a secret code for deviance”, got me into massive trouble. The emerging generation was livid that I dared to suggest that Sheng is “linguistic garbage — a non-language that has no stable syntax, no form, no structure, and no rules of grammar.” One young reader told me I can go and jump into Chania River.
Then there were some articles that annoyed only those named. For example, Justice G.B.M. Kariuki never forgave me for the article, “Why CJ Gicheru must send home stabbing claim judge”.
Six years later, he challenged me at a judges’ colloquium to which I had been invited to speak on judges and the media. With a steely voice, he told me even he had rights.
Clearly, I cannot continue writing this column and at the same time be the Public Editor. So, I’m retiring from this column, because I cannot be the judge in my own case. The only writing I will do from now on will be about my work as Public Editor. So, adios!
