What readers say about the public editor, yellow journalism and language use

A copy of the Nation newspaper. News reporting in Kenya, a reader said, favours what’s captivating over what’s informative. PHOTO | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Mr Marenya has decidedly strong views on how we practice journalism at NMG.
  • Mr Karanja said our media fail to keep us regularly informed about what really matters and we end up being “obsessed” about personalities. 

What is condescending and patronising? 

George Marenya characterised my Notebook of January 15 as “condescending and patronising”, in which I tried to explain the difference between an opinion article written by an individual journalist and an editorial which is supposed to be the authoritative voice of the newspaper or media organisation.

I also tried to explain the procedures that are followed in putting together an editorial.

By using the two words -- condescending and patronising—which are synonymous, Mr Marenya was clearly going for the overkill. 

If I was condescending, or patronising -- God forbid -- it means I was talking down to our readers and treating them like children.

As I’ve said in this column before, I’m a fellow traveller with our readers, only I’ve the privilege of representing them and ventilating their complaints in the editorial department of NMG.  

I cannot therefore, logically, belittle them without belittling my job.

So I asked Mr Marenya to tell me why he thought I was patronising.

This is what he said in a nutshell: Readers should not be expected to know journalistic words of art or even internal editorial procedures.  

They don’t care. They’re only concerned with the final product.

Therefore, he said, for me to say readers are ignorant of journalistic terms is downright condensing and patronising.

Mr Marenya has decidedly strong views on how we practice journalism at NMG.

I’m not surprised many editors prefer to shun rather than engage him. But I always find him refreshing, even if at times trying.

I think the more our readers provoke us, the better for accountable journalism.

YELLOW JOURNALISM
Last Sunday on a quiet afternoon Charles Karanja, a blogger and management consultant, sent me what he said was food for thought.

The Kenyan media, he said, practices yellow journalism.

“This brand of journalism promotes what is sensational over what is informational. Not only that, it permits the publication of stories containing gross exaggerations. At its worst, yellow journalism violates ethical standards by publicising stories with known inaccuracies.”

He suggested that Kenyan journalists do not ask hard questions, insist on the truth, or verify what their sources tell them and, quite often, they don’t get their facts right.

News reporting in Kenya, he said, favours what’s captivating over what’s informative.

“Our media are forever drawing our attention away from the real issues. We’re forever being regaled with stories of political intrigues. Our Fourth Estate exhibits a disturbing tendency to play up allegations, while downplaying truth. Sensational allegations make front page headlines, yet truth later established is ‘hidden’ deep within the paper.”

Mr Karanja said our media fail to keep us regularly informed about what really matters and we end up being “obsessed” about personalities. 

Yellow journalism must now come to an end, he concluded, and in its place, our Fourth Estate must usher in a new kind of journalism that will enable us to rise above that which divides us and move towards that which unites us.

Mr Karanja represents a new kind of reader that I encounter almost every week.

LANGUAGE MASTER
Who is cheating? In his January 23 Mark my Word column Philip Ochieng’ wrote: “Clearly many members of Kenya’s Press corps do not learn. If they did, the word ‘cheaters’, for example, would no longer appear on the pages of our newspapers because some of us have condemned that word umpteen times. …. my dictionary says that a person who cheats is simply a cheat. By means of profound silence on it, Collins affirms that the word ‘cheater’ does not exist in the English language.”

Githaiga Kairu took issue with the language master. “Veteran scribe Philip Ochieng’ has told us time and again that a language is not static yet he does not accept the word ‘cheater’ as noun.

Checking other dictionaries available online the word is authentic.

It seems Collins dictionary Philip relies on is not up to date,” he told me. Mr Kairu is right.

Well-known and authoritative dictionaries including Oxford, Cambridge and Merriam-Webster have “cheater” (meaning somebody who cheats) entries. And Thesaurus gives its synonyms as “swindler”, “deceiver” and “defrauder”.