BY Dickens Wasonga in Kisumu Kenya.
To many reporters, having a story published complete with a by line is such a rewarding gesture, but to a few journalists in Kisumu, a story must be paid for.
This habit which is consistently taking root here in Kisumu is now worrying both the locals and journalists who still hold the ethics of the trade close to their hearts.
The new breed of journalists, drawn mainly from the local vernacular FM radio stations, and another from one of the newly launched print dailies, are now soiling the image of the once noble profession in the manner in which they practice the art of gathering and filing news stories in the lakeside city.
The ‘cash for story journalists’, who calls themselves the ”pentagon” team are known to move each day from one hotel to the other within the town, purportedly in search of stories from seminars and workshops, and woe unto any event organizer unwilling to pay them for the coverage.
According to those who have fallen victims of this group, which first sprung up in the run-up to the last general elections, the five reporters do not care much about being invited to attend such functions, and gate crushing into the events now appears like their area of specialization.
In the very words of a top official of a civil society group working in the area, these scribes storm into functions, register as participants and leave very fast to yet another hotel hosting another workshop, only to resurface much later to pick cash meant for participants.
The news source who asked not to be named accused these young reporters of collecting as little as ksh.100 from leaders when the going gets too tough for them.
”You will see them move in, register and sit briefly. They do not even follow proceedings or take notes during the workshops. If they choose to sit throughout the sessions, they do so from outside the conference rooms, where they engage on petty talk and totally ignore what ordinarily would capture the attention of a serious writer ,” said the activist.
Investigations by this journalist revealed that a member of the same group duped his friends and fellow reporters in the town last year with his school fees harrambee that never was.
The reporter, who once worked in Homa Bay, but was forced out of the town by colleagues over his unethical behaviors, shocked both friends and colleagues when he organized a fund raiser mid last year, with claims that he was going for further studies in one of the university colleges in South Africa, only to use the collections from the harambee to open a bar at Kisumu’s Sifa estate.
Those who contributed money for the young man’s bid to further his education abroad could not believe they were conned when the dates he earlier indicated for his departure came to pass.
Most journalists in the town felt it was good intention to help one of their own realise his ambition to pursue further education and joined in by raising sh200 each besides the contribution they handed in on the day of the harambee.
An a aspirant who lost his bid for Ugenya parliamentary seat narrated his ordeal in the hands of this crooked group to this writer on how they would pay him daily visits with promises of doing positive stories for him while hitting the opponents,all as a means to solicit bribes.
Their team leader was sacked 2 years ago by his radio station after he forged a receipt meant for a client and took sh20,000 in the process.Even though he was shown the door,he seems to have failed to learn from the past and has continued to extort from unsuspecting news sources at his present station.
”They would shamelessly come back even without doing the said stories, until one day I was forced to dismiss them and threatened to report their unethical activities to their bosses”, he said.
The local leaders and civil society groups now want those who own these upcoming FM stations to weed out journalists working for them, to redeem the image of the affected media houses.
Many of the civil society groups are increasingly shying away from asking reporters to cover events they organize because of the unbecoming conduct of these breed of journalists springing up all over in Kisumu as the FM stations continue to grow.
Hooo!!!! this is serious. How are we going to identify the genuine amongst them. Please let security know this or there be an expensive licence to deter them from this act.
it is common knowledge how Journalist in kenya Operate, this few cliques taint the name of the preoffession and am hopeful that your mail has not strings attached with the said people you have mentioned.
However, the last time i checked your name was in the MCK list as one of the distriurbing journalist in Kisumu, u remember how you harrassed pour staf in Kisumu hotel during the Kenya land alliance group meeting and your threats to storm in the Milimani hotel workshop, let crucify other with facts but this group led by Wasonga has more quacks and hotel journalist like no other, Hope you are not trying to protect them coz you are a quack by yourself, having fell out of favour with Nation and Standard who sacked you, being sacked once is not a problem but twice. pliz check your steps.
I note with concern the compassion with which my fellow contributors in the Response section have put forward their their sentiments.
Let us not turn this blog into a platform for settling personal scores because we shall be missing the point.
What Dickens has written is of great importance both to the journalism profession and the society as a whole.
One, and only one underlying factor comes out of all the paragraphs he’s managed to put on paper,reporters’ renumeration.
Most journalist, and especially those working as correspondents or stringers in the provinces like Kisumu are poorly paid.
this is what will continue to become of the profession if journalist willl not come together under one strong trad union to fight for their rights, and especially their pay.
This is a challenge facing the entire profession.
We needy to identify the root cause of this behaviour. Moreover as journalists We need to work together with such journalist and talk to them in order to help them overcome this malbehaviour.
Let us not look at them as outcast but handle them with wisdom since I believe we older generation in this proffession shares the blame on the same as their role models, I believe this is not their own making they acquired if from some of us.
Finally let the Community FMs pay them something to sustain them ,do you know that some of them are not paid anything despite thei hardwork