LEAVING BIRD IN LOCAL MEDIA HANDS & CHASING GLAMOROUS MONACO BIRDS

Kenyan media crews travelled thousands of kilometres to European shores, to cover the crowing of the World Male Athlete of the Year. But there was no reporter dispatched to the home of the eventual winner, who gave his acceptance speech from Kenya. In other words, the local media left the bird in hand in Kenya, and opted to chase many other glamorous birds in Monaco.

This editorial embarrassment went a notch higher, in one of the news reports sent from the venue, for a local broadcast.

There was no sense of shame in including a video conference clip of the winner in the story, given the irony of the TV channel not being able to get a reaction in its own neighbourhood.

You see, it was extremely likely that the World Athletics Awards will feature the Kenyan, and yet no effort seemed to have been made to cover this story from a local angle.

Granted. The awards ceremony could have been a live event, with a recorded insert of the winner giving his acceptance speech.

But there's hardly anything that could have prevented the local crews deployed to Monaco, from pre-taping or pre-interviewing the winner in anticipation, while still in Kenya.

Or is it a case of once beaten, forever shy of taking risks?

I do recall a nightmare scenario about 8 years ago, highlighted here, when one of the sports journalists dispatched to the recent awards ceremony, had an article published, proclaiming what he felt was a sure bet winner.

The only problem then, was that the organisers named somebody else, leading to one of the most glaring yet 'unreported' media contradictions.

One full blown article with the wrong 'winner' got copious prominence, while in the sports section of the same newspaper, another story by the same writer, got the facts right.

Yikes! Just don't do it.

GREAT ANTICIPATION, UNFULFILLED EXPECTATION: A NEWSPAPER'S IAAF NIGHTMARE

It would have been a great story. Celebrating another fine run by a Kenyan long distance athlete. All indications had showed Vivian Cheruiyot was going to be crowned the world's finest 2011 female athlete, and an article had been written in advance. But alas, the IAAF declared a different winner, just as the earlier story was about to appear in print.

The result. Embarrassing, yet almost inevitable. The highest selling newspaper in Kenya hit the stands with two contradictory stories. One proclaimed Vivian's win and explaining in great details, her exploits in 2011and the elaborate award ceremony in Monaco. It was the centre pages' main attraction.

The other story, tucked in the sports pages at the back of the Sunday paper, had a totally different and more accurate account of what had transpired at the IAAF award ceremony. Vivian had been vanquished.

The honour of the best female athlete was bestowed on Australia's Sally Pearson, with Jamaica's sprint sensation Usain Bolt running away with the finest male athlete title.

So, it was almost practically impossible to completely change the content of the Sunday paper's Lifestyle magazine, carrying the erroneous story of Vivian winning the title, that was all set to appear just as Pearson was being declared the winner, on the preceding Saturday evening Kenyan time.

And the situation was made worse by the fact that both stories were written by the same person.

Should the popular paper have shelved the inside section in light of the latest development? As aforementioned, this was probably not practical.

Should it have withheld the new input to avoid contradicting the now misleading anticipatory article? No. otherwise it would have no business being in the news business.

But I strongly feel there should have either been an apology or explanation, even if as a footnote, somewhere in the Sunday paper, because that would have helped minimise the confusion to readers and speculation and castigation thereafter, especially on online social platforms.