Readers feel short-changed when newspaper articles are repeated

Oloolaiser Primary School teachers in Narok pore over a story published in the Daily Nation on September 11, 2018. Repeating stories cheats the reader. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Repeating stories is a waste of real estate — valuable newspaper space — and it erodes reader confidence and trust, and it’s annoying.

Chris Kiraba, a regular reader of the Nation for over 50 years, has complained about the repetition of stories in the newspaper.

The Sunday Nation of December 29 published on page 11 a story on Amani National Congress leader Musalia Mudavadi criticising the Teachers Service Commission. But the story had been published the previous day, in the Saturday Nation.

He also complained about the Sunday Nation picture story published on December 29 under the headline, “The mood, food and X-mas drama Kenyans stomached”.

The picture, played big on page 3, shows a food-eating competition in which three men are captured eating “one kilo of tilapia fish and ugali in 10 minutes” in Busia.

The same picture had been published on page 2 in the Daily Nation on December 27.

Why was the Mudavadi story published twice in two consecutive issues of the Nation? Why was the food-eating competition picture published again three days late, Mr Kiraba posed?

UNCOORDINATED EDITING

Two weeks earlier, on Sunday, December 15, Peter Njenga, of Ruiru, had also complained about repetitions.

The Saturday Nation of December 14 ran an opinion article twice, under different titles and authors. Are John Ouma and Gervas John one and the same person, he asked.

In addition, the subsequent Saturday Nation, of December 21, had ran a story on avocado exports twice.

So I inquired with Opinion Editor Mwiti Marete as I thought he had handled the opinion article. But he had not. He referred me to Saturday Nation Editor Wayua Muli.

Ms Muli, transparently, told me that she suspected the repeat publication was due to the fact that different “sets of eyes” revise (final edit) different sections of the newspaper.

“Once one group lets a set of pages go, they are done,” Ms Muli said matter-of-factly.

In other words — read this to mean — the editing is uncoordinated. Or as Saturday Nation Assistant Editor Jackson Mutinda later candidly explained, this is a case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.

REVISE EDITORS

What Ms Muli meant by “sets of eyes” is sub-editors, whom Philip Ochieng aptly describes as “Their Excellencies” in his “Mark My Word” column (“Repetition of any kind tends to annoy newspaper readers” — Daily Nation, March 10, 2017).

He writes: “For those who have never heard of Their Excellencies, sub-editors are men and women promoted from the general corps of reporters because — among other things — they have shown a great sense of news treatment and a greater mastery of general newspaper production.”

Ms Muli said she would confirm her suspicion with the chief sub-editor. Her suspicion was confirmed.

Mr Mutinda said: “Our problem is that sometimes the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. In the case of the repeated story on avocado, it was filed from New York and we decided to ‘strengthen’ it by assigning a local reporter, but the Business Desk editors took up the original story.

In the case of the repeated op-ed (opinion article), two editors handled the pages and ended up with the same piece picked from the Saturday Nation email inbox.

“As Wayua points out, we have different revise editors who look at the pages, leaving us with only one line of defence: the Production Editor. This is the editor who sees each page as he outputs (transmits the pages to the printing press).”

CHECKLIST

To deal with the problem, Mr Mutinda told me: “We will start by docketing everything that’s going into the paper for review by the editors. I’m also preparing a checklist of the things the production editors should look out for to arrest [this type of] embarrassment.”

Complainants Kiraba and Njenga are rightly concerned: repeating stories is a waste of real estate — valuable newspaper space — and it erodes reader confidence and trust, and it’s annoying.

What’s more, it cheats the reader because, as Mr Ochieng rightly says regarding tautology (“saying the same thing twice”) in newspapers, why is the Nation trying to sell to the reader the same article twice?

Send your complaints to [email protected]. Call or text 0721 989 264