The Daily Nation: 'The Truth' of Deception

When in April of last year I criticized The Standard and called the Kenyan newspaper a tabloid for running what I thought was a speculative, sensational story, some accused me of singling out the publication.

“The (Daily) Nation had run with a similar story only the same week,” one respondent wrote.

“Does anyone have any proof that [Nicholas] Biwott was at all involved in Ouko’s murder? Did you consider The Nation a tabloid for publishing that?” another one asked.

And my reply to them was that The Nation was not the one “moaning about a (government) vendetta, so let’s keep it out of this until its time comes.”

That time is now.

Read more. 

Elderkin vs Throup

It isn't news that the Standard isn't a neutral paper. Two instances - their reporting of Balala's remark, and their reporting of the International Crisis Group's report on Kenya - serve to establish that claim. If you followed the Kriegler Commission's hearings, and you should have, you ought not to have followed them via the Standard, because some of the commentary on the hearing was egregiously biased. I'm referring, as you might have guessed, to Sarah Elderkin's pieces on the 17th and 24 August.

Read more from Daniel Waweru here.

The Standard: Outlandish Everyday!

Every time a Kenyan journalist spends a stint in police detention, the whole of Nairobi goes crazy.

Fellow newsmen and women rush to Ground Zero to show solidarity. Human rights organizations and other groups come out of the woodwork, for a chance to exhibit what they claim is their undaunted support and commitment to the cause of democracy. Politicians, some with questionable human rights records, abandon their activities and run to the police station for the photo opportunity. The more dramatic they act, the higher the likelihood of their pictures ending up on the front page. They scream at and scold police officers, who in most cases are only following orders. They kick the gates open in clear violation of the protocol they demand the government use in summoning the press. They try any and everything that would earn them notoriety in the press - anything.

Edwin Okong'o criticizes the Standard Newspapers, on what he cites as irresponsible journalism.

Free the Standard Presses

Kenyans, basking in the so genannte expansion of Press freedoms gained after the revolution of 2002 will hardly pay any attention to the increasing tightening of the screw on the Standard Group and its employees. Likely many of us already retain an animus against the East African Standard, the worn phrase being that it is a tabloid, given to an obsessive publication of untruths and hyperbole that is unbecoming for a newspaper of its influence or size. There will be a schadenfreude in many quarters as financial pressure is brought to bear on the Standard, especially among its competitors but the pain that is now the Standard's will soon be shared by all Kenya.

Amir Ibrahim, "We ignore the plight of the Standard at our peril; an unfettered Press is the very cornerstone of democratic government." Read more here.