BOLD JOURNALISM REDEFINED: BBC TO AIR FIFA VOTE SCANDAL DESPITE ENGLAND BIDDING

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.

THE ART OF REGURGITATING NEWS: WHEN ELECTRONIC MEDIA LAG BEHIND NEWSPAPERS

"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.

KIDNEY FOR LOVE - THE IRONY OF KEEPING A SECRET VIA THE MEDIA

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?

BUSTED MEDIA ETHICS: THE CASE OF AGNES AND CLASSIC 105 FM

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?