I Accuse the Press for giving Esther Arunga hell on earth

Targeting this celeb-enthralled readership, listeners, and viewers only succeeds in polluting the brand and alienating the media outlet from audiences that matter.

Celeb-hungry media consumers are not even targets of advertisers because members of this group will buy whatever satisfies their gratification without anybody having to cajole them to do so.

The ultimate tragedy for newspaper sales when an editor panders to this group of readers is that they will read the story online free of charge, sometimes leave a nasty comment, and wait for you to waste more of your space next time with a story about a news anchor who mistook her real life for a dry-run rehearsal.

Prof Mwangi, an editor at Afrika News, teaches media and cultural studies at a Chicago university (mwangi@afrikanews.org)