Nyeri story was misleading and unbalanced

Nyeri Town

Kimathi Street, the main street in Nyeri town.

Photo credit: Joseph Kanyi | Nation Media Group

What you need to know:

  • The writer forgot to say Nyeri is home to the Scouts Movement and Lord Baden-Powell is buried there.
  • The story has many generalisations and mentions only one investor — a whole town! 

The story “Nyeri: The Mount Kenya town with no mall or pizza shop,” by Mercy Mwende (Daily Nation, June 27, 2022) is poorly told or lacks some elements. The headline is misleading; in the story there is no mention of malls or pizza shops as so boldly mentioned in the headline.

What makes a town, if I may ask? What standards did the writer apply? She forgot to say Nyeri is home to the Scouts Movement and Lord Baden-Powell is buried there. Indeed, scouts from around the world pay pilgrimage here all through the year. She aptly talks of an ancient town (Isn’t this a good point?) and the magnificent antique-like architectural designs.

So what is the objective of the story? What is it educating us about? Putting some more effort into the story would have given us, say, a story crusading for upgrading of the town, modernising it, etc. The story has many generalisations and mentions only one investor — a whole town! 
Thanks, though, the story raises some issues that need to be seriously addressed.

— Mugo E. Waweru, consultant and researcher on population

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Video shouldn’t have been aired

Something is very wrong with NTV. The horrific video depicting the shooting of a woman shouldn’t have been aired (See “Showing on TV the horrific gunning down of Sophia Gathoni was unwise”— Daily Nation, June 24, 2022). 

One may wonder; is it a carefree attitude by editors or it’s just deliberate?

— Richard Njoroge

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The uncanny similarity of headlines

On Friday, June 17, 2022, I had an opportunity to read both the Daily Nation and The Standard
On page 8 of the Daily Nation, there is a story with the headline “Relief for JSC as appeal court lifts order barring hiring 26 judges”. On page 4, The Standard of the same date has a similar story with the headline “Relief for JSC as Appeals court lifts order stopping judges hiring”. 

How could the two stories in the different newspapers bear such an almost perfect editorial, linguistic and semantic semblance? 

Could it be that one newspaper or reporter or editor had prior knowledge of what their competition was processing for the day?

— Amunavi P. Kasisi