It was reckless for the media to ‘kill’ Ole Magelo before time
Former AFC Leopards chairman and Nairobi County Assembly Speaker Alex Ole Magelo.
What you need to know:
- Wanjigi would later lament about the anguish his family went through following the publication of the advert which he described as a “death promise.”
- Such is the damage that misreported deaths in the media can cause.
They say doctors bury their mistakes, lawyers jail theirs, while journalists publish theirs for the world to see.
But it’s also said that to err is human, that no one who has ever lived on the face of the earth is perfect. In a word, human perfection is illusionary.
This is a reality of life which, however, doesn’t – and shouldn’t – justify impropriety.
Speaking as a journalist, the mistakes that inevitably sneak into the content we put out there on print, on air or online may on face value appear not to be as grave as say a medical gaffe or a law practice blunder, which in some cases easily result in fatalities or the deprivation of freedom.
But it appears the Kenyan media has been slowly gravitating towards the same direction, going by how common it has become for people, especially prominent individuals, to be ‘killed’ by the media long before the date of their appointment with their maker.
That was the sad case of former AFC Leopards chairman Alex Ole Magelo, who was ‘pronounced dead’ on social media sometime last week, days before he actually breathed his last two Fridays ago at a Nairobi hospital.
It’s okay for people who don’t practice journalism to expend their energies and time in gossiping about matters touching on the state of health of others, but it’s unforgivable when such sickening inaccuracies are actually published in the media.
What happened to the good old practice of verification and fact-checking, that should be the very essence of reportage?
As such, all the online platforms which prematurely reported Magelo’s ‘death’ last week dealt an irreparable damage, not just to the family and friends of the late Nairobi County Assembly Speaker, but also to their esteemed audiences.
They may not have ‘killed’ him in the real sense of the word, but misreporting someone’s death may be just as traumatising to the person in question and his loved ones.
What is so repulsive about these wanton ‘killings’ by the mainstream and social media is how common they’ve become.
Every so often, a Kenya politician, musician, comedian or public figure gets ‘killed’ in the media, followed by plenty of messages of condolences, only for the supposedly deceased individual to come back from the ‘dead’ and reaffirm that he or she is still alive.
The most recent of these misreported deaths include those of renowned broadcaster Leonard Mambo Mbotela, comedians Daniel ‘Churchill’ Ndambuki and Oliver Otieno aka “YY” as well as media personality Njambi Koikai.
But the one that was by far the most bizarre was the mysterious placement of a death announcement of someone with a similar name and a striking resemblance to wealthy businessman and political strategist Jimi Wanjigi on the obituary section of the Daily Nation on February 7, 2018.
It later emerged that the incident, which happened at the height of political animosity that followed the disputed presidential elections of 2017, was a carefully planned operation to cause suffering to the businessman and at the same time embarrass the publisher, Nation Media Group.
Wanjigi would later lament about the anguish his family went through following the publication of the advert which he described as a “death promise.”
Such is the damage that misreported deaths in the media can cause.
