County correspondents taking journalism to the dogs

In what I consider to be another lifetime achievement, I worked as a public relations officer (PRO) for a hospital in Meru. It was one of those drab jobs where you look for the good in our health sector and try putting it in the newspapers to please your employer.

Being a trained journalist, I lived in constant embarrassment with the echo of the words of veteran journalist Phillip Ochieng’, who said that "public relations is intellectually unrewarding", always ringing in my head.

I yearned to go back to journalism where pen men and women view the career as a calling. It should not be lost on people that some journalists treat the profession like some sort of a venerated novelty that humanity cannot do without.

All this pride in my profession was rudely pruned when I encountered colleagues reporting from the county level.

You see when you work as a PRO, you have to make friends with the local scribes who will help you publicise some of your engagements like medical camps, services and most of all write positive things about your hospital when a disaster strikes to keep the blame away from your boss.

I had hardly known some of these chaps before I started questioning how they operate. Their motivation is a simple, the exchange of commodity for every service rendered.

But this approach to life as we know it, has always brought trouble.

Today, the competition amongst politicians and other bodies has made the media somewhat a prized asset. If you are in a rural place and you know a journalist you are regarded as well-connected.

My little hospital was not very newsworthy to them since we didn't have money to splash, but I followed their operations in some other institutions and I would say there is a lot of extortion going on in the course of duty.

The correspondents roam around offices armed with cameras and notebooks, talking big and promising every up coming politician how they will make them instant political celebrities once they write stories about their political careers.

The politicians fall into the trap and shower them with money. And then a dangerous game of cat and mouse starts once such obviously unbalanced stories are ‘killed’ by editors.

The sad part is that most of the individuals who are duped don't know about the operations of a newsroom, so they end up blaming the media houses the said 'correspondents' claim to represent.

But this is not the first time we are talking about journalistic ethics. It has been been very much in question, not only at the county level but everywhere else, including the developing world.

 

In England, the issues of phone hacking by journalists created a storm that shook journalism to the core. This brings to light a major problem with journalists and ethics, particularly in the circumstances that face journalists, especially those in our counties.

If you have been following our politics you will know about the fierce feuds that our MCAs engage in. From Makueni to Embu, these fellows are ready to kill each other to gain influence.

They behave like Mafia bosses ready to put out murder contracts on anybody opposing them as they 'eat' county resources. It is unfortunate that some correspondents have joined in the fray.

They get hired to write negative stories about rival camps, but their loyalty changes once the rival camp pays more. You should see the kind of praise they offer openly to corrupt leaders during press conferences.

In such a setting, it becomes difficult for journalists to concentrate on acting ethically because they feel so much pressure to get stories.

The sight reminds you of the scribe who shadowed a character called Honorable Chief Nanga writing exactly what he was told, in Chinua Achebe's book, A Man Of The People.

Journalism can be a powerful tool.

After King Louis XVI called the General Council of the Estates before the calamitous events of the French Revolution of 1789, the English Writer Edmund Burke, while looking at the offices of the Times of London, quipped, "...and there lazes the Fourth Estate".

Journalism is one of the most powerful professions, but once this power is misused, society suffers a lot of consequences. Whatever media bosses do, they have to look for a solution to the problem of unprofessional correspondents.

Of course I have heard of poor conditions in some areas where correspondents work, lack of facilitation from media houses and an absence of a number of things necessary to peform.

But these should not be reasons to push a true journalist into unethical behavior.

That is the preserve of quacks, and they are many who are attracted by the allure of money.

I am not giving a blanket condemnation to all correspondents at the county level. I have encountered a few who take pride in their work and carry their pens and cameras with the kind of dignity that makes it impossible for even the Emperor of Rome to tempt their righteousness.

Let our editors and media owners come up with a policy to try and rein in this rot piling up in county bureaus.


 

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