We tell the untold stories

What you need to know:

  • The pair started out as rookie journalists in The 3rd Eye, Moi University’s press club, tinkering with cameras and editing software until they had garnered videography, photography and writing skills and learnt the process of publishing news reports and videos.

Marvin Gakunyi and Emmanuel Yegon are final year communication and journalism students at Moi University, which they joined in 2013.

In 2016, they founded Mobile Journalism, a web-based media outlet, to jostle for position in the highly competitive local media scene. 

“We film news stories, sports and entertainment content with our smartphones, which are our pocket studios, and publish them on our website: www.mobilejournalism.co.ke. Our main objective is to publish stories from the remotest parts of the country,” Marvin, 24, explains.

But why would stories from the country’s mostly forgotten locations interest them?

“People relate more with stories about events happening in their proximity. Those who live in these far-flung areas feel that what interests them is underreported, misreported, or that their stories don’t make it to mainstream media,” Yegon, 23, explains. 

He adds,

“Our platform gives people the opportunity to tell their own stories in their most preferred fashion from wherever they are. Our slogan is ‘Our stories are best told by us.’”

The pair started out as rookie journalists in The 3rd Eye, Moi University’s press club, tinkering with cameras and editing software until they had garnered videography, photography and writing skills and learnt the process of publishing news reports and videos.

“We couldn’t have gained these skills purely from our courses. We took initiative to learn them in readiness for the evolving changes in the media industry,” Marvin notes.

Whereas they appreciate that conflict lends appeal to stories, they hold the view that conflict alone should not always constitute the news. 

“It is for this reason that we’re determined to change the narrative of storytelling in Kenya by debunking the popular notion that ‘what bleeds leads’ in news reporting. In fact, the less told human-interest stories elicit more interest from the audience than the everyday occurrences about tragedies and politics,” Yegon argues.

According to the duo, the limitless power to break news from any part of the world has brought along other challenges.

“Most of these citizen ‘journalists’ don’t observe elements of ethical journalism, such as balance or fact-checking. This often leads to skewed reports and gaps in reporting,” says Marvin.

He explains,

“This is where our journalism skills come in. Upon receiving stories, we sub them, run background checks and package them in the right format before publishing.”

Anyone can submit stories for publishing with Mobile Journalism, upon registration. Currently, writers are not paid for submitting stories to the site.

“The main incentive is that interesting stories that may never be told on mainstream media have an opportunity to be told, by you, in a simple but professional fashion,” Yegon explains.

The two have also started publishing creative work such as poems from their pool of writers. But as content increases, so does the need for more hands.

“We’ve contracted fellow journalism students as volunteer editors to process the growing load of work. The roles keep them productively engaged and help them to tweak their editing skills. It’s a win-win arrangement for all of us,” Marvin says.

Besides this partnership, Marvin is an emcee and a digital marketer. He also manages journalist Johnson Mwakazi’s social media pages besides running his own YouTube channel, Marvin Gakunyi Show. From these, he earns a monthly income of about Sh70,000. Yegon is also a marketer and a social media influencer from which he makes money to support himself in school.

Their class was initially to graduate last year, but the lecturers’ strikes last year interrupted and stretched their academic calendar to the end of this year.

“This delay has allowed us more time to look for practical skills and to market our brand, which we do through social media. We use our fellow social media influencers and our accounts on Twitter and Facebook to drive traffic to the site. We believe we’re now ready to join the job market,” Yegon says.

In 2017, the two represented Moi University in the second edition of Top Story, an investigative journalism challenge that aired on KTN.

“The competition features the most enterprising journalism students from Kenya’s leading universities with an aim of nurturing the next generation of investigative journalists. We reached the semis,” says Yegon. 

The team is currently organising a training by the Media Council of Kenya (MCK) for their 19 contributing journalists across the country.

“We hope this will make it easier for them to get accredited to practice journalism as students,” Marvin says.

Their active practice has helped them to keep tabs on the dynamics of the media, which, Yegon says, will give them an upper hand when searching for a job.

“Newsrooms are adopting journalism 360, a model where a diversity of skills such as writing, photography and videography are converged under the same platform to achieve immersive storytelling in news. Only rounded journalists can fit in this system.”

The pair is also conscious of the unfriendly political and economic space the local media is operating in.

“When practising journalists lose their jobs every year, this disheartens those of us who are still in media school because it makes the terrain look even bumpier,” Marvin says.

Yegon shares his insights on the future of journalism:

“Mobile journalism is the inevitable future of storytelling. With opportunities in the traditional media space shrinking by the day, budding journalists must go out of their way to acquire relevant skills and position themselves accordingly.”

When their class dives into the uncertainty of the job market in May this year after their studies, the two are happy to have somewhere to start: build their brand and possibly get sponsorship for expansion.