Will mainstream media be relevant in this age?

**Nancy Booker, Ph.D. Chairperson, Journalism and Communication Department Faculty of Media and Communication Multimedia University of Kenya**

We are in the Information Age and the human race has never been exposed to so much information that in one day, an average person in a city is said to receive as much data as someone in the 15th century would encounter in a lifetime.

With the Information Age came the blogs which were personal websites where individuals could write articles or post pictures and videos on any topic, including their personal lives, on a regular basis.

Blogging used to be a preserve of very few people and was mostly about keeping an online diary. However, it has now evolved and so many people are into it. Further, tools have been developed to make it easier for anyone with an opinion — and don’t we all have opinions? — to start a blog, thus it is no longer for only techies or computer whizkids.

Kenya has not been left behind in this digital revolution, and the country’s blogosphere started developing in the 2003.

Blogging has since gained traction and is no longer just a hobby for many Kenyans, some of whom command a following of tens of thousands of readers. Actually, some bloggers earn a living solely from their craft.

The exponential rise of blogging in Kenya should come as no surprise, says Daudi Were, one of the pioneer bloggers in Kenya.

“Blogging is one of the most African things you can do,” he says. “The very idea that everyone has a voice goes to the heart of the African spirit. It is what we have always done.”

Were is also a director at Ushahidi, a tech company. He started writing online in 1997, when the name ‘blog’ had not even been coined.

“People now congregate online to tell stories and discuss issues, so the technology may be new but the concept is the same,” he opines.

When he put up the blog MentalAcrobatics.com in 2003, things were very different then. “Those days, getting a reader a month was cause for celebration. If someone told me ‘Hey, I read your post’ that would really be a big deal to me.”

One would wonder what inspired him to blog when most Kenyans were still asking what “an internet” was. It was not about the money.

“There were no companies which would pay for their advertisements on blogs. That meant that our perspective was totally different. We were writing because we wanted to write,” he says.

“What provoked me to start blogging was the State broadcaster’s attitude towards the Opposition during the elections. It was not giving them airtime, so blogging gave the other side of the story that was being kept from public view.

“My principle has always been to speak the truth to power and that is what has kept the blog alive all these years,” he says.

Truth to power is a principle that encourages people to take a stand and speak to those in authority and hold them accountable as concerns societal values and what is expected of them.

Even though certain blogs in Kenya still dwell on politics, the blogging scene has grown beyond politics.

“Blogging was mostly about politics but nowadays we have blogs on entertainment, sports and even fashion and that shows there are different ways of adding value to the society,” Were says.

“The same concept of speaking truth to power applies to them and this is where the value is.”

He is right.

Some of the blogs that record many hits, the ones that are popular, have nothing to do with politics.

For instance, Thisisess.com by Sharon Mundia, is a fashion blog and is arguably one of the most successful in the Kenyan blogosphere. When Sharon got engaged in May and blogged about it, the site received so many visitors that it crashed.

The news about her engagement was trending on Twitter too, with a hashtag #PoleKwaMwirigi.

Mwirigi reportedly had a crush on her, and so Kenyans decided to offer him “words of comfort” over his loss.

Corporate brands decided to cash in on the Twitterfall and offered him their words of comfort while pushing their products. Politicians also joined in.

One local bank tweeted thus: We are engaged to you and you can be sure we will be by your side for better or for worse #PoleKwaMwirigi.

The governor of Meru County reminded him that “Your county is with you. #PoleKwaMwirigi.

The power of blogging has perhaps never been more evident than early this month when one Jackson Biko set out to help a young man he had never met in person raise funds for surgery to remove a brain tumor.

Emmanuel Otieno, who the blogger referred to as Jadudi, needed Sh 1 million to go to hospital in India. He had been operated upon three times before and his parents could not raise more funds for his travel and hospitalisation.

Biko wrote about Jadudi in his blog, bikozulu.com, and launched online campaign dubbed #OneMilliForJadudi. The piece was titled That Thing in Jadudi’s Head and it had a paybill number to which readers could send their donations.

The blog post went viral and the target was reached in five hours. In less than 30 hours, #OneMilliForJadudi had raised sh 6 million and a hotel chain and an airline gave donations in kind. The airline offered to fly him and his parents to India, and the hotel chain offered them accommodation in Nairobi.

Such is the age we live in -- a single blog post and a hashtag can change lives instantly. It is the 21 century Kenya where anyone with a smart phone can be a newsmaker or a reporter. “Blogging provides alternatives, and a lot more variety in terms of content,” says Dr Nancy Booker, the chair of the Journalism and Communication Department at Multimedia University of Kenya.

“We are now spoilt for choice in terms of what we want to consume from the media.”

Traditional media outlets such as radio, television and newspapers have had to contend with the fact that blogging is now the competition.

“We are having situations where traditional media does not always b break stories,” says Henry Maina, the regional director of ARTICLE 19 Eastern Africa.

“This has become the work of citizen journalists or bloggers and even the sad news of the Garissa University terrorist attack first appeared on social media.”

Maina, who is a journalist, says that bloggers have become opinion shapers. “Where media has skewed certain narratives, bloggers have stepped in to tell the real story.

“In situations where the media would refuse to cover a story on the basis of its news value, citizen journalists nowadays step in.”

Article 19 is an international human rights body which champions freedom of expression and right to information. It operates in 14 Eastern African countries.

“For bloggers, there isn’t much restriction and anything goes,” says Dr Booker. “Some issues that might not be newsworthy to mainstream journalists appear on blogs. While media houses have to comply with certain regulations, bloggers have much more freedom.”

She says that blogs provide opportunities for upcoming writers to put forth their ideas. “If their work does not meet stringent editorial guidelines, they still have a platform.”

Even though such a platform is a plus to consumers, there are instances where accuracy, credibility and journalistic ethics are sacrificed at the altar of getting news out first, and fast.This is slowly giving way to what is referred to as Journalism of Assertion, a kind of journalism which values immediacy and volume of news without extensive and critical fact-checking.

“Bloggers come in all shapes and sizes.

“Some have journalistic training and do not flout journalistic principles. However, others do not have training, and ethics and such do not bother them,” Dr Booker says.

Bloggers are not bound by the journalists’ code of ethics, says Maina.

“They are not limited by the code, but the law still applies to them just the same way one would be held accountable for insulting a person on the street,” he says.

Even though they are not bound by the code, Dr Booker warns that they should not ignore ethics.

“Being unconcerned about this is dangerous because you are writing for an audience that is literate. You might come out as audacious and they might like what they read at first, but after a while, when they see that you do not care about certain principles, you begin to lose their trust and readers.”

Old media remains relevant by employing new approaches to dissemination of news. They are becoming more analytical, more critical and more opinionated.

They help readers make sense of what they have already read on social media.

“Traditional media outlets have to work hard to ensure that their content is evidence-based.

“They have the upper hand in analysis and interpretation, things that blogs do not do and that is why they still have an advantage because they have reputations.”

According to Maina, traditional media has to embrace complementarity and work with prominent bloggers.

This must involve going digital and working more closely with citizen journalists, while opening up channels of communication with the public. Dr Booker agrees.

“Mainstream media has benefitted from bloggers. For instance, Biko is no longer just a name, he is a brand. So when he writes for mainstream publications, it is good for them because his readers follow him there.

“Newspapers must adjust and include content that appeals to the people who have been reading his blog.”

Dr Booker and Maina offer similar advice to aspiring and established bloggers.

“You are only as good as your last post,” says Dr Booker, adding that consistency is what builds your name and you should be responsible. “Ensure that you understand the values of the people that you are writing for.”

Were says that bloggers should think about [their] integrity.

“Is it worth sh 50,000? If a company is giving you a product, paying you for advertisement, you should still be able to call them out if you disagree with something they do since they do not own you.

“I still have not made money directly from my blog, but I have landed numerous opportunities, such as speaking at the G20 summit in London, because of the credibility I established from the blog,” he says.

According to him, we are just scratching the surface of the potential that the Kenyan blogosphere has to offer.

“We need more voices online. We should hold the government accountable. We should ask, ‘Why do we have to resort to fundraisers for everything? Why isn’t the government playing its role?’

“There should be enough hospitals, hospices, cancer centres. Those are not issues to do with which politically party one supports. These are Kenyans’ issues.”