Reporter’s nose for news and what went amiss in Ngotho family story

Good reporters have a nose for news. They can sniff out a story, a scandal, even from a newspaper death and funeral announcement. They also have the ability to ask the right questions to the right people when they sniff out a story.

Further, good reporters must keep an open mind. They don’t go about their job with predisposed views or fixed ideas. All these qualities came into play in writing the story published in the Daily Nation, “No, it wasn’t a joke: Inside family feud that was captured in ‘viral’ obituary,” which was spread across pages 2 and 3 on Tuesday.

The idea for the story started with the death and funeral announcement of Elizabeth Mueni Ngotho, published in the Nation nine days ago. The obituary was unusual. It described her and her brother who had died 25 years earlier as partners in crime. It went viral. Some people read the announcement as mischievous or playful, with a sense of humour. Others read it as a serious condemnation of Mueni and her brother and an indicator of conflict in the family.

The obituary said: “Mueni has now been reunited with her beloved father Anthony [Athanas Ngotho] and her partner in crime Peter [Kyalo Ngotho] and they can get up to their typical mischief where they left off.”

Anthony Athanas Ngotho was a former government chief architect and designer of the infamous Nyayo House. But let’s focus on “partner in crime.” What does it mean? 

The term has two meanings, literal and figurative. The literal meaning is an accomplice in crime. It’s a legal term. It’s covered in the Penal Code. Every person who aids or abets another person in committing a crime is deemed to have taken part in actually committing the crime.

The figurative meaning is a close friend, soul mate, buddy, confidante. It’s someone you can trust and do things with, share inside jokes with and tell your secrets to. The term doesn’t imply that you participate in crime.

Buddies or accomplices?

So, were Mueni and Peter just buddies or accomplices in crime? Was there bad blood in the family? To find out, the Nation reporter attended the burial of Mueni in Mwala, Machakos County, on Saturday. The reporter then wrote the story, published on Tuesday, which concludes there are “cracks in the Ngotho family”. 

Gilbert Muyumbu, a reader, faults the conclusion and says the headline does not fit the story. I’m reproducing at some length his comments because he addresses what can go wrong when a reporter sniffs out a story but fails to ask the right questions to the right people, or allows people to say nasty things about others while hiding behind the veil of anonymity. This is also a story that invades the privacy of a family without the justification of serving the public interest.

Total embarrassment

Mr Muyumbu says the article doesn’t show that, indeed, there is a family feud. It only peddles what he says are rumours, hearsay and suppositions. The reporter didn’t interview anyone from the family. He only interviewed an alleged close family friend “who begged for anonymity”. Nor did the reporter check the background of the writer of the obituary to establish whether he or she is a poet whose use of language the general public could find unconventional. Interviewing the writer “would have gone a long way” in resolving the mystery behind the obituary.

“If it turns out that this was just a person's innocent way of bidding farewell to their dear departed, it would be wrong and unethical for the Nation to misrepresent an innocuous turn of phrase and use it to cause a rift in the family that would probably have not been there in the first place.”

Notably, I must add, the reporter didn’t interview the people he needed to interview and yet they were present at the funeral. Instead, he mainly treats the reader to his own musings.

Sample this: “There is an austere and solemn sense of family disarray that unsettles the soul and spirit. You can tell that, were it not for the security personnel and a curious crowd, a pandemonium would have ensued.”

The story is, at best, only good enough for entertainment. Otherwise, it’s a total embarrassment for the Ngotho family.

The Public Editor is an independent news ombudsman who handles readers’ complaints on editorial matters including accuracy and journalistic standards. Email: [email protected]. Call or text 0721989264