Columnist Philip Ochieng' is an insincere language critic

I was reading Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye’s Coming to Birth when I first saw Philip Ochieng’s name. Since then, I have followed Ochieng’s work. What I didn’t realise was that he would degenerate into an insincere, biased language critic.

Although sometimes Mr Ochieng’ is right, I no longer respect his work for two major reasons. First, he presents himself as a serious language critic yet when you read his column, you wonder if a serious critic can only read one paper. Secondly, I encounter numerous errors in the paper he earns his living writing for.

Every reader deserves clear, balanced, objective and accurate work from journalists. But again, how can Ochieng’ grouse about a mere conjunction that did not even have far-reaching effects as he claims?

In his previous attacks, he blamed The Standard for (I could still use ‘over’ instead of ‘for’) generous use of the word ‘over’ in its headlines. Then on September 16, I picked a copy of the Daily Nation and counted over eight headlines bearing the same word.

One wonders if the only publication Ochieng’ gets his hands on is The Standard. I recommend he also joins the city in reading The Nairobian because it does not overuse “for” in its headlines like Daily Nation.

Ochieng’ should come out clean. If he is a language critic, he should read all the publications and help us shape our language. I admire Wallah bin Wallah. He detests poor Kiswahili and will correct any errant writer. I have heard him correct the team that hosts the Kiswahili show on Radio Maisha and sometimes news anchors. His joy is to see a nation that can express itself in flawless Kiswahili.

There is a clear distinction between a critic and a gun for hire. A critic will identify an area of interest, ensure that he or she collects enough information in that field and then comment on the findings. He or she brings out both the best and the worst in that field and would not even spare a flaw in his own compound. That description fits the likes of Wallah bin Wallah.

A gun for hire also has his area of interest and will also collect information about it. However, when he discovers a can of worms in his own compound, he will hide it and instead choose to comment on the one he met at his neighbour’s compound.

Today, journalists are dealing with a lively audience – one that is active and wants to be part of news. This is not the type of audience that existed when Ochieng’ was still a news writer. In his time, they were more into analyses than real-time news. That is why a publication like Weekly Review by Hilary Ng’weno was a big thing.

In this era, readers want real-time news. They would rather be told today that a building has collapsed than wait for the next day’s publication to know about it. Since Ochieng’ doesn’t write news, he can help journalists by reviewing their work (Daily Nation included) and helping correct the mistakes journalists commit while trying to tell the story on time.

He says he doesn’t write for a generation like mine. That he writes for a particular class. But age should not be an excuse for him not to read other publications and help the generation he writes for know which evils have been committed against English.