The Death Of The Mainstream Media Is Here Unless We Have Real Journalists

I sent out a tweet on the ultimate death of the mainstream media in the age of blogging and social media. Employees of these “mainstreams” who don’t want to hear the truth almost skinned me alive. They don’t want the truth.

The death of the mainstream media is here. However much they want to play the proverbial ostrich tactic of hiding their heads into the sand hoping that the wind of change sweeping across will pass, it will not. It will sweep them.

Our newspapers are busy selling headlines. They are paying little attention to content. Giving us screaming headlines with dry bones within. Nothing tangible. They have immersed themselves in politics and soliciting handouts. No news.

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Buying a newspaper is becoming a waste of time and money. You purchase a newspaper and the first thing you see are grave spelling mistakes all through a story. What happened to the thorough editors of those days? Have they delegated editing to interns as they move around running side hustles?

Some like The Standard and the Nation have made their content “premium” but nothing premium attached. The same political crap coupled googled features and lifted content from social media platforms just to fill the pages. Lazies.

The danger facing the mainstream, and one that will send it to a delayed grave (it should happen even now), is not technology, but ignorant and thick-headed journalists who resist change. The current change is inevitable and will sweep them all.

The majority of the so-called journalists in the mainstream think that they are gods, Alpha and Omega, moral cops who cannot be corrected or enlightened. They will crucify you on any tree as the pelt stones if you dare call out their hypocrisy.

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In the process, they have turned the mainstream media into nothingness. Looking at the mainstream brings to the surface the proverbial “garbage in, garbage out.” What they do the whole day is to bubble like people who are in a frenzy.

In the next three to five years, some of these “journalists” in the mainstream will be obsolete, jobless, as the new media takes over. And it will be hard for them to get a job somewhere else because of their cluelessness, laziness, and zero creativity.

Look at Larry Madowo. The man continues to scale the heights of global media by each coming day. If he was like the ones we see, he would still be interviewing members of the defunct NASA, Jubilee, and UDA. Look at how he breaks down issues, sober and articulate. Then compare with some of the garbage we have at home.

The mainstream media should first realize that technology is here. It is the change that has come and business will never be the same. They should get out of their house of cards and face the reality through creativity and research.

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The age of breaking news is no more. Anything that “breaks on the mainstream” is already “trending” on social media, especially Twitter. What the “mainstream” is doing is playing catch up, oscillating with facts without knowing where to anchor.

At the same time, the age of prime-time news is slowly fading. Stats show that 76 percent of Kenyans get their “prime-time” news on social media platforms. 15 percent of the 76 percent watch TV just to confirm whether what they saw/heard from social media is true.

The mainstream needs to invest more in documentaries, features, and advocacy. Any media that will tailor its focus to features and documentaries will survive the purge that is coming.

Journalists from the mainstream should embrace technology. They should realize that bloggers have overtaken them, and the only way is to befriend them, not hate them. Some of them literally hate bloggers, when in reality, bloggers are running these streets.

That is all. Let the simple minds throw stones.