Not surprising perhaps, a foreign national reporting on local issues, cannot be expected to have a 100% grasp of the subject matter, right?
Wrong, in my considered opinion. If the intern or even an exchange programme journalist posted to a Nairobi media house has had relevant prior training, then they have a reasonable capacity to do a professional job.
In any case, such trainees are not just allowed a free hand but are guided every step of the way by experienced editors or news producers. So why should it be automatically assumed they cannot relate in a sufficient manner, with local issues they have been assigned to write or report about?
Moreover, is the colour of one's skin such a big deal that a white trainee will be viewed as having taken up an opportunity that should have been accorded a 'more' deserving local resident? I think not.
A Local Kenyan Story, as Reported by Canadian Lisa Weighton
Unless of course the debate is taken through the narrow paths of racial profiling, historical subjugation or post-colonial hang-ups and supremacists polemics. In any case, Kenya is a multicultural society and fast becoming multi-racial to a critical extent.
And as argued by Robert Hernandez:
"If we don't reflect our communities....if we don't listen to others outside of our own individual communities, we've missed the point of journalism."Now therein is a gem worth memorising.
