An uncompromising critique of how the media covers topical issues, challenging traditional journalism concepts and charting fresh interpretations of news.
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December 2nd is the day FIFA's Executive Committee votes to decide, who will host the World Cup in 2018 and 2022. England is putting in a strong bid. But what is the BBC's Panorama TV programme featuring, days before that D-Day? The FIFA vote buying scandal that resulted in the suspension of two committee members.
The feeling from especially UK government circles and the 2018 bid team is that the timing of Panorama's investigative piece could harm England's chances by rubbing FIFA the wrong way by revealing how corrupt its systems are.
Wembley Stadium, London: Copyright, Agachiri 2010
Admirably, the management at BBC have opted to stick with the original scheduling despite immense pressure to put emphasis on 'patriotic reporting,' when deciding whether to broadcast the damaging expose.
The consequences can be grave and England might very well lose out on the rights to host the World Cup in 2018 but, and here I side with the BBC and Panorama crew, its about the bigger picture of jealously guarding press freedom.
You do not trade when to expose the truth as a professional journalist and so trying to consider third party opinions would be tantamount to being compromised to begin with.
That is what bold journalism should be all about. It might not be pleasant, but it's the right thing to do ethically.
"Dear TV editors, repeating a story that I read in the Sunday Nation is not news." A terse and sharp rebuke from a fellow Kenyan journalist, which perhaps indicates how regurgitating news, often times, has become an art perfected.
The Sunday Nation newspaper story in focus, was a damning indictment of the country's embattled Water minister, bordering on outright nepotism, when it came to awarding her ministry's lucrative tenders.
Electronic media outlets were beaten to that story by the newspaper and probably not unexpectedly, they immediately jumped on it, hoping to not only make up ground, but also take it forward and break any new angles that day, before the papers take their publications to bed.
Unfortunately, that was not to be, mainly because no media outlet succeeded in getting a response from the minister in question, it being a Sunday, among other reasons.
So anyone tuning in to catch the news that evening and who also had read the day's Sunday Nation, would have rightly wondered why TV stations were screening stale information packaged as news.
As pointed out by the observant journalist, it is even more shameful that the newspaper story was being reproduced word for word, in some instances, for the evening bulletin story.
It however goes to show that the prophets of doom, as far as the future of newspapers is concerned, ought to be a bit more optimistic. I mean, just look at how the Vatican newspaper's story of Pope Benedict's views on using condoms, sent the entire global media into a spin, print, electronic, online, mobile et al.
He says he can only get to be with his beloved if they do a formal wedding. And because he cannot afford the attendant costs, he is prepared to sell his kidney. True love may be the case here. But when the kidney for love story gets to the media, the irony becomes apparent.
Delphin Wamalwa says he wants to keep his little, nay enormous arrangement a secret, in so far as his sweetheart is concerned.
But then again he is telling this to the camera, in the full knowledge that his interview will be part of a news story, broadcast to the masses in true mass media fashion.
Chances are extremely high that his beloved will get wind of his plans. Or is this the underlying intention?
You can never tell how far the ingenuity of Kenyans can propel them. The said lover could be moved to the point of withdrawing the 'nuptials or nothing' condition.
Or better still, a well-wisher, like it so often happens, could volunteer to organize a modest or even grand wedding for the couple. Now won't that make Delphin happy, kidney-less or otherwise?
The ingenuity of the concept of setting up cheating spouses on national radio is without doubt amazing. Even entertaining to some or a justified comeuppance for the two-timing culprits. But to go as far as impersonating a person infected by the HIV virus, amounts to a busted media ethics.
Whether the Classic 105 FM presenter is faking the whole episode in order to catch the startled party is to me besides the point. The fact that HIV/Aids is in reality a much dreaded disease, whose sufferers are exposed to a whole deal of stigma ought to have first called for some sensible analysis before going on air.
Yes. Agnes has been busted and all but made to confess her infidelity. But suppose a person living with the HIV virus was following the proceedings? In other words, the person ailing from HIV gets to hear his or her life-threatening condition being ridiculed.
And by extension, such a person is likely to be exposed to social stigma because HIV is often perceived as a death sentence-like condition and her 'supposed' status is publicly revealed and even broadcast.
Moreover, the acceptable practice is that before one is tested or told of one's HIV status, one is first counseled. You don't just blurt out directly to some one that they may be infected with the virus.
Supposing by some hyperbolical bad luck, the diabolical call to Agnes could have caused her to have a fatal heart attack from shock? Will the station not have been culpable?
Lolani Kalu is a veteran of the Kenyan media scene. But the way he practices his unique brand of journalism is at times so outrageous. Outrageously refreshing. Refreshingly engaging. Engagingly captivating. I call it the Lolani Kalu effect.
His mastery of the Kiswahili language is second to none and it's a delight to hear him narrate a news story. A delight because his conversational style of delivery simply draws you in.
Lolani is also a performer per excellence and the way he infuses his artistic skills into news stories makes them quite memorable.
But it is his creativity that perhaps stands out. You never know what to expect in a Lolani story, especially one that he is filing from location.
This fact is best exemplified by a story he has just done on why area residents of Homa Bay County allow their livestock to spend the night in the open, away from homesteads.
What does Lolani Kalu do with this story? He narrates it from the point of view of the animals. The master story-teller cleverly brings out the night-time activities by actually voicing the make-belief thoughts of the various animals.
Now that is what I would like to see more often. Not just thinking out of the box but thinking as if there was no box to begin with.
Seven Kenyan lives have just been carelessly lost. It is highly scandalous that officials allowed a football match to continue, despite the unfolding tragedy in the stadium. Event management needs to be left to professionals, and here, the country can get valuable crowd safety lessons from the UK.
First of all, no major event should be allowed to continue without a set number of safety stewards. Their work is primarily to constantly keep a close watch of the crowd an immediately report to their supervisors any sign of trouble, however minute.
Such is the seriousness within which crowd safety is taken in the UK that this service is regularly outsourced to experienced and professional event management companies.
For example, at the Emirates Stadium in North London, home to Arsenal Football Club, the venue managers have their own team of stewards, who are deployed at all strategic places.
And because nothing is left to chance, the stadium management sub-contracts additional services to another event management firm, to ensure maximum crowd control.
So, as tens of thousands of football fans enjoy the match, hundreds of other personnel are monitoring safety-related aspects from inside the stadium, to the immediate external environs, including the car park, as spelt out by legal guidelines.
And every premiership match is categorized according to its inherent safety risks, based on previous crowd behaviours, which also determines the number of police officers deployed to the venue.
Routine Emergency Procedures
Anfield, Copyright Agachiri 2010
A most admirable trait in the UK is the high level preparedness or alertness that safety stewards and their supervisors have to be put in. As a matter of fact, before any event, stewards are taken through emergency procedures.
If anything goes wrong, the safety team knows exactly what to do because emergency procedures have been rehearsed
White Hart Lane Before A Match, Copyright Agachiri 2010
And one key element of these crowd safety preparations is the evacuation procedure. Using coded messages, event management officials armed with talk-back radio gadgets, are able communicate fast with each other on the nature and location of any trouble spot.
In Kenya, it is obvious the safety of spectators is not given such importance, because not even the death of fans is enough to prompt a complete evacuation of a stadium.
That more than 30,000 people can be almost abandoned, left under the care of a poorly prepared team of security agents, is in the very least careless and irresponsible.
Match organizers at the ill-fated Gor Mahia versus AFC Leopards clash at the Nyayo National Stadium should be held accountable for endangering the lives of Kenyans in the first place, by not putting in place adequate crowd safety measures.
Putting profits before lives
And to allow the match to continue as people are being rushed to hospitals or the mortuary, whether somebody has paid for it to be broadcast live across the African continent or not, amounts to greed and criminal negligence.
White Hart Lane, Copyright Agachiri 2010
You obviously can't expect the sophisticated crowd control measures and the cost implications that are achievable in a developed country to be replicated in a 'poor' country like Kenya.
The bottom line however, in my view, is that all human lives are precious and should be protected to the best of available capacities.
The UK has had its share of stadium disasters with considerable fatalities but lessons were learnt and remedial measures taken.
Will Kenya witness another stadium tragedy or will the government take concrete actions to prevent such disasters in the future, including formulation and enforcement of legally binding crowd control regulations?
It represents a significant shift in the way news is delivered in Kenya. The philosophy behind it being that with the passage of the new Constitution that is hinged on a devolved system of governance, news too should be devolved. That is why you can count on the County Edition to bring you news coverage from the very grassroot level.
It's rather unfair and preposterous to assume that the major news stories in Kenya can only come from the capital Nairobi, and yet that for a long time has been the case.
So one gets to be regularly treated with a heavy dosage of news about what the politicians have been up to, either from the comfort of posh offices, homes or even hotels, even if the matter they purport to be addressing affects people in remote constituencies.
So what better way to shift the media focus away from the centre than to dedicate three days every week for a systematic and intensive coverage of other parts of Kenya, as categorized by counties.
There being 47 counties in all, it really leaves no room to have any one region overlooked and subsequently in the long run, untold stories and faces are almost guaranteed of a piece of the media spotlight.
Granted, it may appear as if the NTV County Edition is giving undue time to what appears to be mundane stories that don't necessarily exude national importance type of issues. But that is precisely the point.
The news agenda should not always be prescribed to the audience from media organizations. They too can and ought to be given a chance to articulate what they feel is important to them.
It is high time the media entrenched a culture of listening to what its audience has to say and not just disseminating packaged information, with inherent slants and calculated agendas.
