Director of Strategy and Innovation at Citizen TV, Linus Kaikai, on Thursday, stated that the month of July was morbid for the country and especially for journalists who covered bad news.
During the News Gang show, Kaikai noted that covering bad news was not easy for journalists.
He remarked that most newsmakers had become common in journalist’s phone books and newsroom database sources, hence, forming personal relations with them.
“We speak to them, on or off the record on varied issues of public interest but we also get to know them as fellow human beings, private family persons, regular citizens and ordinary vulnerable members of society.
They become part of our ecosystem and we, annoying as many sometimes find, become part of their system,” he divulged.
Kaikai was making these sentiments due to the deaths of the many leaders that had taken place in the month of July.
“This first of August, for example, the nation held two funeral services for two of several prominent persons that died in the month of July, Kibra MP Ken Okoth and Bomet Governor Joyce Laboso.
“Bad news breaks us down, whether it’s that jobless 1st class university student or the death of a Chief Executive Officer of Kenya’s most profitable company,” he added.
The Citizen TV boss also talked about covering sad news on ordinary Kenyans, giving an example of the Dusit terror attack and the Solai Dam tragedy.
“Some are victims of untold stories such as the Solai dam tragedy or Dusit terror attack and others are victims of agonising living through disease, poverty and unemployment.
In all these circumstances, it is the humanity of journalists that is tested to the limit, yet the long practice norm in journalism is to be neutral, objective and dispassionate while doing a story,” he concluded.
