How CNN journalist’s password drove Kenyans to rare show

By KEVIN OGUOKO

Last Monday, CNN’s Inside Africa Errol Barnett tweeted a password to his Twitter followers in Kenya.

The password, ‘Connected’ was to be mentioned when they meet, for a chance to join him on the show Inside Africa being aired in Art Café at Nairobi’s Westgate Mall the following day.

“They showed up in large numbers. It proved to me that Kenyans are a force to reckon with when it comes to being tech savvy,” says Mr Barnett of his experience, which he named CNN Inside Africa Experiment.

From engaging other Kenyans on Twitter, Barnett was directed to iHub. He was amazed by the convergence of young people gathering to bring in new innovations and mobile applications.

“An application that a farmer can view the price and decide where to sell his or her agricultural products. That was fascinating!” he said. Barnett started his journalism career when he was 18 years old. Being a UK native, he had to shift to Los Angeles in the United States when he got selected as a reporter for Channel One News in 2002.

Voice for people
“In your 20s that is when you can do major stuff. You can change the world. History throughout the years has proven that,” Barnett says of his stint in journalism. His job has afforded him all kinds of reporting opportunities.

From covering the Democratic Party National Convection in 2008 that highlighted then Senator Barack Obama’s image to the limelight, to President George Bush’s second inauguration as president of the US.

“The difference between the two is that the Bush administration was quite big on national defence, while the Obama one leans more on economic growth,” Barnett says of what he describes as the largest democracy in the world.

After graduating from UCLA in 2008 with a degree in Political Science, Barnett was engaged by CNN as a reporter. He left Channel One News for greener pastures at the CNN headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, in the US.

“I was in charge of pioneering the network’s reporting in the social media when it was starting to explode around the globe in 2008,” he says of his first task. With this task came huge opportunity for Barnett. He was able to break news that he would otherwise not have delivered without the use of social media. These include the terrorist bombing in Jakarta, the Turkish plane crash near Amsterdam and aftermath of the contested Iran elections in 2009.

“The national servers were shut down by the national Government to prevent the people of Iran from sharing information about the elections to the outside world, since journalists were not allowed inside the country.

The Iranians used proxy servers from other countries to share their experience through uploading videos and pictures. Through this we got the information we needed,” says Barnett.

He admits having not been near the war zones but says he respects reporters who cover stories from the war front. But having covered political stories in the US and around Africa, he believes it is his right as a journalist and a voice for the people to question the need for war.

“I was born to a UK mother and Jamaican father. My mother later got remarried to Gary Barnett, who was a US Air Force sergeant. He served in the Gulf War and it bothered me that he couldn’t be with us.”

Barnett is currently based in Johannesburg as an anchor and a correspondent for CNN. His most touching experience as a journalist covering reports from Africa was his trip to Mogadishu where the plane had to get special permit to land.

All along, refugees were lined up along the airstrip, waiting for possible relief supplies. As they leave the country this weekend, the journalist and his crew have come up with three stories for Inside Africa. The first story is based on Kibera slums and how the community has come together to uphold their livelihood.

The other story is on man versus animal – a documentary based on the country’s wildlife and their existence along mankind, and the challenges surrounding this. And of course there is Kenya’s story based on her use of the social media.

“The journalism in the country is very healthy. Up to African Standard,” Barnett says of Kenya’s media while waving some Kenyan newspapers. The renowned journalist says there is nothing to write home about concerning his personal life. “I work out to stay fit. I also love music. Apart from that, I have an African girlfriend who is a model and travels a lot too. But we always keep in touch,” he says.

Ten years down the line, Barnett hopes to be doing what he loves to do best: “Hopefully anchoring one hour news from around the world.”