New Non-Sexual Scandal At The Nation: Which Newspaper Will Kenyans Now Trust?

Regular readers of this blog have often complained that the two daily newspapers in Kenya, namely the Daily Nation and the East African Standard have plenty of monopolistic tendencies which give readers limited options and this does not augur well for the free flow of information and proper dissemination of news to the public. Still there are many who have always dismissed and ignored this sentiment. That is until the emergence of the current state of affairs at Kenya's leading and hitherto most trusted daily newspaper, the Daily Nation.

Actually two things have happened at the Nation that have clearly demonstrated that Kenyans will now have to read their daily newspapers with much more cynicism and doubts. Firstly in an unprecedented move, a section of the editorial department has taken on the top management of the newspaper by leaking details of a sexual scandal involving management, to the public through the Internet. Secondly, even as that first controversy raged the senior managers forced the resignation of their star crime reporter Stephen Muiruri, under highly suspicious circumstances. Before leaving Nation Center, or shortly after leaving, Muiruri seems to have felt compelled to explain the details surrounding his resignation and departure to colleagues. His detailed email on that subject which he circulated to colleagues, again leaked out and was posted on the Internet. Its' contents are shocking to say the least. One of the most disturbing things that has emerged from the email is the fact that police commissioner Major General Ali has actively been censoring and seeking to tone down the crime reporting that finds its' way into the Daily Nation newspaper columns.

This behavior by police commissioner Ali put Muiruri and the top management at the most respected media house in East and Central Africa, on a collision course that led to his departure from Nation center.

This development now explains and answers a question that we have been asking in this blog. The question is why is it that matatu carjackings where commuters are robbed and female passengers gang raped are so common in Nairobi these days and yet they are never reported by the media? The answer is that the news and information we read on crime is suppressed and controlled.

The questions that Kenyans will now have to ask themselves are numerous. Questions like, can the public trust senior editors accused of actively seeking sexual favors from female staff including other people's wives? Can they trust characters like these to give them balanced and truthful reporting every time? And if the police have some sort of control over the number of crime reports that find their way into newspapers, who else controls the news we read or have access to in the media? If the police commissioner is regularly seeking to tone down the way crime is reported, who else is doing the same with some other sort of news and for some other reasons? Is this the sort of media that Kenyans can trust as we head into a crucial general elections?

See Muiruri's leaked email.

Nation media group on fire.