Wacheni siasa mingi. Let me give you the hard but controversial thing that is bringing down the Nation. Of course you are free to call me a tribalist.
Two guiding principle first; One, media is a business like any other. Two, in any business, customer is king.
The over-whelming market for media, as with most products, is the wider Mt Kenya region - Nakuru, Nyandarwa, Kiambu, Meru, Nairobi, Machakos, Kajiado, Nyeri, Murang'a, Laikipia, Embu, Kirinyaga and Tharaka-Nithi. Ask EABL or Safaricom.
Around 2006, the Nation board made the mistake of appointing Joseph Odindo to be the Group Managing Editor, GME, of the Nation. It's thinking was simple and time-tested - the group needed to be close to gavament, and it looked like the next president was going to be Raila. Odindo is Babuon's distant cousin, so a Raila presidency needed a Raila man at the top. Gavament is the leading sourse of advertising any way.
Then GME, Wangethi Mwangi, the brother of internal security PS David Mwangi (see the pattern?) was retired to pave way.
In the run-up to the 2007 elections and with Joe as the chief, the Nation went full ODM. Kibaki supporters in the newsroom started getting side-lined. Others were dismissed.. When Raila 'lost' the Nation became a virtual opposition mouthpiece. It started losing its key market - the Mt Kenya region, Kibaki's bedrock.
Between 2008-2013, Odindo continued to pursue the Babuonist editorial policy. Uhuruto alone had over derogatory 150 cartoons drawn by Gado depicting them as ICC prisoners - an international record of sorts. (I once confronted Gado about this on Kenyatta Avenue once). The likes of Kalonzo were drawn as either chameleons or watermelons. The only person who was lionised by the Nation was Babuon.
But Joe went further than that. Incrementally, he removed Mt Kenya reporters, columnists and editors and replaced them with Raila-leaning ones from Western Kenya and Luo Nyanza. The likes of Mbatau wa Ngai, editor, The EastAfrican and Benard Nderitu, editor, Sunday Nation were replaced by Jaindi Kisero (Luo) and ?? Obino (Kisii). Out went Mutahi Ngunyi, for example, and in came rabid Babuonists like Makau Mutua. The only Mt Kenya columnist of note who survived the purge was Gitau Warigi.
Later, when the Board raised the issue of the skewed appointments and kicked out Joe, long after Uhuru had won 2013, the likes of Kagwanja were brought in to try and balance the paper; on Sunday virtually all opinion pieces were from the likes of Atwoli, Otieno-Otieno, Makau Mutua, Opanga, etc.
Mutuma Mathiu, a peacock Meru with an insatiable appetite for young reporters was promoted to Chief but it was too late - damage that had taken over a decade could not be corrected in an year or two without damaging litigation.
The Nation continued with the pro-Babuon, anti-Mt Kenya editorial policy even under Mutuma; it takes a lot to change the direction of a ship, as the recent Suez incident showed.
Today, you can buy a copy of the Nation and the first story by a Gikuyu, Embu, Meru or even Kamba writer/reporter is on page 14. ALL THE OTHER STORIES, FROM PAGE 1 TO 13, will be by writers with names starting with the letters O or A. The lead story will invariably be about Raila.
This is Joe's legacy; destroying the Nation as he had destroyed several other publications before that.
How NMG, with all its experience in navigating the business environment, expected its biggest market to stick with it under these circumstances is beyond me. It's all good to call yourself a national newspaper, but how many copies are bought in Turkana or Lamu? Last year they were forced to cut down 150 jobs. They even asked for Covid support from the same gavament they have been delegitimising.
Media is business, and business is about the customer. If the customer cannot identify with you product you die.
The huge Mt Kenya market has deserted the Nation, as it did the Standard when the later became a Moi mouth-piece.
Sad, but we are now witnessing the death of a brand, courtesy of one Joe Odindo.
(some of the timelines here may be a bit off)
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