The last three days have been a buzz of activities. Many of us became familiar with the name POTUS, mentioning it more than we might for the rest of our lives since it took years for a sitting American president to visit Kenya. More importantly was the Global Entrepreneurship Summit that actually led to POTUS’ coming. We (read most Kenyans) were however overtaken by POTUS coming that most Kenyans actually focused more on that. Given the hullabaloo about the beast there was also a lot of craze about it. That aside, #SomeoneTellCNN was also trending for a whole day or maybe more where Kenyans on Twitter roasted CNN for calling Kenya a hotbed of terror about which I reserve my comments. Eventful few days they were.
To add to the action, #KenyaMediaFailure also trended. KOT bashed Kenyan media for focusing more on POTUS and The Beast hullabaloo and less on the Global Entrepreneurship Summit. This I feel was quite hypocritical, uncalled for and unfair especially coming from KOT who sustained a Julie Gichuru trend on the “alilililili” for the better part of Saturday and could hardly sustain one on the GES. I’m still trying to understand why Julie was there whether as an entrepreneur, media personality or flower girl. I stand to be corrected on why she was there but if that opportunity was given to an entrepreneur we knew nothing about we’d have wanted to know about him/her and that would have been a plus.
Back to my point, covering the president of the U.S especially when his time was strict and very limited I should say kudos to him. I appreciate that since the Kenyan media anticipated this, they had put a lot of focus on the pre-Summit which very few Kenyans took interest in yet had so much on matters entrepreneurship. The kind of information KOT bashed Kenyan media for not having.
On the actual summit day there was a lot on President Obama’s itinerary. The Kenyan media however tried to balance coverage of where he was while at the same time giving excerpts of what was happening at the Summit. The balance may not have been perfect but it was there. If they did not keep us updated on where POTUS was, probably there would have been a #KenyanMediaCantFindPOTUS. Apart from “Kenya is a hotbed of Culture” that President Uhuru Kenyatta highlighted, there is a lot to be drawn from his opening statements and those of President Obama. There was more from insightful interviews with investors aired by Kenyan media that KOT did not focus on.
Most Kenyans on twitter did not analyze media coverage throughout but just jumped on the #KenyaMediaFailure. A few however pointed out issues that I am sure Kenyan media houses will take seriously and improve on the next time they’re handling coverage of a similar nature. KOT need to analyze situations in entirety and not just jump on hash tags that end up crucifying people who put in a lot of effort to ensure we are informed. Citizen journalism is also a new concept that KOT should embrace. If someone took a moment to check out facts from the GES website establish gaps and tweeted it probably with #WhatKenyanMediaMissed it would have made a lot more sense than generally hating on Kenyan media blindly. Correction is proper but Kenyan Media coverage on POTUS visit and the Entrepreneurship Summit did not deserve the #KenyaMediaFailure.