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The slugging match between the media and some of Kenya’s leading social space players offers an opportunity to examine whether the pronouncement of the death of traditional media could probably be premature or exaggerated.
Could it be that the reality is much more nuanced, and attacks on the media could be equated to stirring a Samson of the Bible who, though beaten, still has some strength left in him and could pull the roof down in a moment? Only last week, a broad study was released indicating that the emerging majority of people access their news from sources other than the traditional media. This is music to the ears of social media advocates.
For some people, the solution to dealing the media scrutiny has been to build an army of keyboard warriors tweeting all day to spread their messages. Social media influencers now do all they can to drive traffic to their walls and keep interest alive. In some cases, the stunts have been lacking in imagination and only contributed to denting the credibility of the influencers.
The decline of traditional media has, of course, in many instances been received with glee by state bureaucrats. This is not without a cause. Politicians love cultivating their image to remain in the good graces of their electorate – it is their stock in trade for winning future elections. Often their behaviour differs from a model one, and the media calls them out. Once in a while, when a politician has been caught on the wrong side, the solution is to label the offending content fake. It is Donald Trump’s standard operating manual. But he is not the first one to do so. In the Daily Herald of June 4, 1929, the paper carried a picture of Winston Churchill, England’s celebrated Prime Minister, carrying a book titled “War”.
Not impressed, Churchill fought back, calling the picture fake, but there was nothing fake about it, and the Herald responded in kind. Few people have attacked the media like Richard Nixon’s Vice-President, Spiro Agnew, did. He referred to journalists as a “tiny and closed fraternity of privileged men” who had assumed a “profound influence over public opinion” and “self-appointed analysts” given to “querulous criticism”.
In a 1970 speech, Agnew referred to journalists as “the nattering nabobs of negativism” who are “hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history”. Eventually, Nixon gave way, resigned with his head bowed and joined the tunnels of history with Agnew in tow.
Politicians have always sought to put media in its place. Kenyan politician Mulu Mutisya, for example, once disparaged journalists lumping them with their parents. Not too long ago in these lands, former President Uhuru Kenyatta referred to newspapers as best suited for wrapping meat. But the media remains.
Bill Clinton, former president of the United States, appeared to have mastered somewhat how media operate and characterised it thus: “The media knows what sells—conflict and division. It’s also quick and easy. All too often, anger works better than answers; resentment better than reason; emotion trumps evidence. A sanctimonious, sneering one-liner, no matter how bogus, is seen as straight talk, while a calm, the well-argued response is seen as canned and phony.”
Traditional media may not be disappearing in a hurry. That is because the public still hungers for a source of aggregated information perceived to have been gathered by a party that is not biased, (although the latter part may not be necessarily true).
For some reason, the public likes the smell of blood, and when a bureaucrat provides an opportunity for a slugging match with the media, then it is likely the public will sit up to soak it all. Going to war with the traditional media is not new. Those who go to war with the traditional media have seldom won it, not even in the age of social media.
— The writer is Dean, School of Communication, Daystar University