By Victor Ochieng’
vochieng.90@gmail.com
Listening to a radio stations in Kenya just makes you shake your head with utter amazement. You wonder whether we still regard journalism or mass communication as a profession per se. For somehow, somewhat, we have jilted meritocracy, courted and fallen in love, and went to bed with mediocrity. John Mason, the great American penman says: mediocrity is being on top of the bottom, or being at the bottom of the top. Mediocrity is the anthem of the norm, and the heartbeat of the ordinary.
Our Kenyan media should strive to evince excellence; become better versions of themselves. That ambit can only be achieved if they purpose to focus on their main objective as news and information conduits. The main mandate of mass media should be to gather and disseminate of useful information. It is incumbent upon them to inform the public with clock-like precision. It behooves media outlets to educate and edify the masses, by focusing on truth, transparency and accuracy. The media also has a cardinal duty of setting the agenda for the nation.
Our Kenyan media should ascend to its regal responsibility by becoming proactive and preventive in nature. For most of our media stations are more reactive in their entirety and totality. They wait for things to happen, more so bad ones, that is when they respond, move with swift speed to report the bad and the ugly. Most of them, are driven by the dictums: What bleeds, leads. Bad news is good news. When a dog bites a human being, it is not news, but when a human being bites a dog, it is news.
When you scratch the surface to excavate the truth, you will ascertain that there is either death or dearth of investigative journalism in Kenya. We have paucity of professional journalists in Kenya, who can engage in serious investigation and unearth the veracity of the matter. Therefore, in this specific sphere, the media fails dismally to act as the main watch dog in the society. That is why social evils and vices like corruption find fecund grounds to sprout.
It is shell-shocking to see some of our media stations giving idiocy its pride of place. Some media stations give prominence and dominance to idiotic ideas to reach the ears of the public. When in actual sense, journalism should remain a profession par excellence. Also, it should be practised by professionals, not comedians who toy with serious issues of life like the institution of marriage. Because professionalism has been thrown to the gutters, we have witnessed radio stations that employ clowns, jokers and semi-illiterate people. When such people are brought on board, they manifest their mediocrity and abject lack of ideas; that is why they bank on dry jokes, tribal mockery and obscene scenes.
By and large, a profession like journalism should be anchored on specialised theoretical knowledge. In a larger sense, it should be merit-based. It should operate within the confines of moral rectitude. There should be ethical standards to be adhered to. A radio or television station should not be a centre of spewing venom. Journalists should remain custodians of our moral consciousness. The Media Council of Kenya should be keen to play its censorship role: regulate what is served to the public. It is clear like crystal, in many cases, people don’t do what you expect, but they do what you inspect.
Personally, I cringe when I listen to some radio stations at sunrise and sunset. Fellow compatriots tune-in to listen some of these radio stations while going to work. In such moments, you will hear some ‘journalists’ having a heated debate on marital matters. Plenty of people love listening to such, because most of us have a knack for gossips, rumours and tales riddled with dramatic twists. The wonder of wonders, the advice and counsel doled out in such moments are taken as the gospel truth. Why? Because some of us lack the ability to separate maize from chaff. This begs the question: Do such journalists know that it is professionally wrong to talk about things you have scant knowledge about? For instance, sensitive issues pertaining the institution of marriage should be addressed by marriage therapists.
Why don’t we learn from professions like Law and Medicine? It is hard to go to the temples of justice, and meet a professional charlatan making submissions on those awful floors in the name of defence or litigation. Someone who lacks enough training in legal matters is also not allowed to start a law firm in this city with storeyed roads. In the hospital, it is unethical to find a doctor who is not licensed to practise medicine as a profession. There is no room for professional quacks in the medical field.
There is even a radio station that makes a mockery of a certain ethnic group in relation to marriage, separation and reconciliation. Sometimes, we joke a lot, and fail to erect boundaries to where need be. In this case, we don’t blame the illiterate professionals. Instead, we blame the media mandarins who sit back and watch as things go south.
The writer is an editor, orator and author.
