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Fifth Estate

Access to authoritative sources and credibility key to legacy media robust storytelling

This past one week I have been engaged in very insightful conversations with some brilliant journalists whose ideas on informing the society struck me. From Minority Africa in Uganda and their innovative storytelling that includes underprivileged communities into the mainstream public sphere to engagements on media viability in East Africa. These engagements gave me a fairly refreshing perspective of the media landscape and the emergent generation of storytellers.

Misrepresentation of minorities in mainstream public discourse is a germane issue in the society today and what Minority Africa is doing is trailblazing for a great course. You see, we had this panel discussion that brought together Aga Khan University’s Innovators in Residence at the Jamlab Festival dubbed Jamfest2021, and the response and discussions post the sessions have been as engaging as they have been eye opening. One of the legacy media journalists called me immediately after the session for further engagements, and she had more questions and more insights and then we went on into the cultural values of news, solutions journalism and how the legacy media can reclaim the lost cultural values of newness, drama and globality.

We decided to explore all these within the Kenyan context and it is interesting that we easily agreed on the express highway from the Airport to James Gichuru as the perfect case study. We were unanimous that the legacy media has to go beyond giving us what has traditionally been new, also known as hard news. Why? Because a story like the traffic snarl up occasioned by the construction along Mombasa road comes to us through Facebook live and other feeds including WhatsApp and Instagram videos shot by the real people held up in traffic. Suffice to say, coverage of such snarl ups would only count for single stories that are less informative. The same applies to stories on the cost, and the lamentations over investments in capital infrastructure.

Granted, the value of news that was once a preserve of legacy media has been snapped by the citizen journalists who dot all the news hotspots and are close to events unfolding all over the world. In fact, today when someone is in distress and needs help, the public will be happy to unleash their smartphones and capture the moment rather than help. Drama is also gone with the digital media and so is globality. If it is happening and it is of global interest it will go viral, transcend space and time with or without the legacy media. However, what the legacy media has not lost that is vital is credibility and access to authoritative sources.

Back to the express superhighway and solutions journalism. Today, we cannot complain about lack of information, we probably have a deluge of information on the cost, financing, the inconvenience and folks sleeping on the road plus the constant lamentations of misplaced priorities of capital investment. However, this is not the first grand project that has elevated roads in this city to superhighways. There is the landmark Thika Superhighway and the game changing Outering road, just to mention but a few.

Since journalism has to redefine how it tells its stories to a society that has a plethora of information and is thoroughly mediatised, credibility and access to authorities has to drive more incisive and illuminating stories. Illuminating stories don’t give facts and data, they weave data and facts into human interests and human existence to tell human stories that have depth and context and in the case of the express highway, one would expect an ethnographic approach that would dig deep, get data and facts and tell the story of Kenyans against the backdrop of the express superhighway.

Such an approach would give us more data and facts on how the other highways have changed lives, the time to be saved when both the express superhighway and road beneath it are fully functional and what this would mean to the business community and traders in the city; and most importantly a projection of the impact on households quality of life and cost of living. Besides the local people poised to benefit from the domino effect, actuarial scientist would be the other go to guys to map out how the express highway would reduce traffic beneath it, the opportunity cost now and the financial gains after completion. Herein, digging deep on how other roads have changed lives positively or lack thereof would be ideal for juxtaposition. These kind of stories would be of interest to Kenyans.

One, because they are stories that the public wouldn’t get anywhere else, but certainly be need of and interested in. In terms of revenues, Kenyans would probably be willing to pay for such stories because they would be seeing what is in it for them in the data and facts. Secondly, it would put everything in context and provide, not only solutions but fairly contextual pathways for decision making.

The author is a PhD Candidate in Media Studies and Political communication.

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