Open letter to the Aga Khan

Confidential
 
  His Highness
  The Aga Khan
 
  Thro
 
  The Press Officer
  The Information Department
  Secretariat of His Highness the Aga Khan
  Aiglemont, 60270 Gouvieux, France
  Email: information@aiglemont.org
 
  June 21, 2007
 

Re: The Lost Dream: A Petition to His Highness The Aga Khan from Journalists of Nation Media Group

Your Highness, this petition has been sent to you by both print and electronic journalists from Nation Media Group. We feel that you should urgently address some critical issues that have continued to seriously undermine the reputation and credibility of the company and its employees in the past seven months. We hope and trust you will give this letter and the issues we have raised herein serious consideration.

From the onset, we wish to state categorically that we are different from the group of journalists who have been exposing the sex scandals in NMG in the internet and in other newspaper periodicals.

Although we support any meaningful efforts aimed at bringing back moral sanity into Nation Centre and the need to kick out all managers implicated in sexual impropriety in our work place, we don’t agree with the manner our colleagues decided to go about exposing the skeletons in the cupboards of our bosses. Choosing the internet and newspapers to expose our dirty linen in public was not the last option at the disposal of the disgruntled journalists. They should have chosen better avenues, like addressing you directly.

We are sure neither Nation’s CEO, Mr Linus Gitahi, Mr Wangethi Mwangi (Editorial Director) or the other directors give you the correct picture when they come to meet you for a scheduled meeting in Paris for purely personal reasons. They are prepared to lie to you and present to you reports that are factually incorrect to save their jobs.

Media Bill

As you might be aware, Kenya’s Minister for Information and Communications, Mr Mutahi Kagwe, has tabled in Parliament a new Bill that will have far reaching implications on the media industry in Kenya. Nation Media Group, being the dominant media house in East and Central African region, stands to loose a lot if the Bill is passed by Members of Parliament in its present form. Sadly, Mr Gitahi and the other top executives have chosen to take the role of spectators as the other media houses fight tooth and nail to pressurise President Kibaki’s regime to withdraw the controversial Bill.

It would be expected of NMG to take the leading role in opposing the Bill knowing what is at stake for us. But that is not happening under Mr Gitahi’s leadership. He seems more comfortable to please President Kibaki’s regime due to their common ancestral roots of Nyeri District. The leading media houses in Kenya recently held one joint Press conference and organised at least two public gatherings to pressurise the Government to drop the Bill. It was a big shock for TV viewers when the Press conference – held at Mr Gitahi’s boardroom on May 17 – ended without the Nation CEO uttering a word! He looked like a lost sheep in his own boardroom! Mr Gitahi skipped the other two public forums and never bothered to send a representative. Mr Gitahi seemed to have abdicated the leading role which NMG had taken for many years concerning matters of public interest and he has left it to small media outlets like the Royal Media Group, Kameme FM and Mr Hannington Gaya (who owns an inconsequential magazine).

Mr Gaya and representatives from other small media houses on May 31 attended a forum organised by the Centre for Multiparty Democracy to discuss Mr Kagwe’s Bill but nobody turned up at the event from NMG. The media representatives present presented Members of Parliament present with a petition to shoot down the Bill if the Government failed to heed the wishes media owners. NMG bosses were also conspicuously absent from another forum organised by Members of Parliament and media professionals on May 23 to drum up support for opposition of the proposed media law.

Mr Gitahi appears to be keeping a safe distance for he doesn’t want to ruffle the feathers of President Kibaki and Minister Kagwe since they all come from the same home district. Daily Nation today looks like the Government’s mouth-piece and the State needs not find another publication to expound on its achievements and the lies it has been feeding the public with Mr Gitahi at the helm.

At least, Mr Gitahi’s predecessor, Mr Wilfred Kiboro, swept aside his retirement to save the face of NMG when he addressed a gathering in Nairobi and spoke candidly against the proposed media Bill. Mr Gitahi is yet to make a bold and firm statement against the proposed draconian law. The only attempt he made was when he spoke at the Nyali Golf Club during this year's Nation Classic on May 20. Our CEO was so incoherent in his attempts to criticise the Bill and he kept stammering as if he was drunk. It was so embarrassing to see him on TV.

It is now evident that Mr Gitahi was given a big job he is incapable of handling. Mr Kiboro carried the face of the company. Mr Gitahi lacks charisma or any qualities of a CEO of a giant company like NMG.

Credibility and Reputation

We believe if Mr Gitahi took the grievances of our disgruntled colleagues seriously and handled the issue professionally, he would have saved himself and this company a lot of embarrassment that resulted from the unleashing of damaging sex dossier in the internet. Nation Media Group, its staff and products have today become the laughing stock of other media houses, professionals and the general populace. We lost the moral authority to criticise others and we are no longer regarded as the mirror and conscience of the society.

Before the sex dossier was unleashed on the internet, the disgruntled journalists had sent two anonymous and confidential letters to Mr Gitahi detailing the rot in Nation and who was responsible. The journalists decided to make the issue public when Mr Gitahi stubbornly ignored the valid issues raised and he chose to bury his head in the sand hoping the storm would wither. The storm has grown bigger and bigger each day and Nation Centre has today acquired the dubious title of the Brothel in the Middle of Nairobi.

To add insult to injury, Mr Gitahi embarked on a retrenchment project that was masterminded and spearheaded by the very same managers whom we believe are responsible for the mess and moral decay in NMG. Instead of targeting the rotten managers and any journalists who were non-performers, Mr Gitahi kicked out some of the best lot. Since he took over the leadership of NMG, the company has been hit by a wave of resignations by some of the best journalists.

Other media houses and upcoming media outlets have been cashing on Mr Gitahi’s goofs and they have been poaching the best journalists. NMG today looks like a training ground for rivals media houses. This has seriously undermined the quality of NMG products. It’s not hard to spot embarrassing mistakes on Daily Nation page one too often.

There is no doubt that NMG has lost some of its top cream of journalists to the competition due to a leadership that is aloof and out of touch with reality. The Nation has lost good journalists due to poor management by Mr Wangethi Mwangi and Mr Joseph Odindo who practice the management style of the past centauries. They are so unpopular with the journalism fraternity due because of their poor leadership management. Any journalist trembles when called to their offices. Since they have created a barrier between themselves and their juniors, no journalist is free to interact with them. That kind of management is out of tune with the modern world.

The results of a staff survey conducted under the leadership of Mr Kiboro in October last year were placed under lock and key by Mr Gitahi since because journalists had passed a vote of no confidence in the management styles of Mr Mwangi and Mr Odindo. The management feared the findings of the survey would embarrass them.

Journalists decided to go public on the moral decay in NMG after Mr Gitahi openly sided with Mr Mwangi and the other managers who have presided over an authoritarian rule at Nation Centre. It’s the same managers who are badly tainted with sex and corruption scandals. It also emerged that Mr Gitahi could have gone to the defence of the tainted managers because he too had a questionable moral history. He was accused of being a gay while he was a student at the University of Nairobi and having an affair with a married woman when the two worked for Glaxo SmithKline. The woman’s husband has filed a divorce case the the Family Divion of the High Court of Kenya and his grounds for divorce are that she had an affair with Mr Gitahi. Among the court documents filed by the aggrieved party in court in support of his case and which have seen by our colleagues who report on court matters, are photos of Mr Gitahi and the woman in bed.

We are fed up with marriage-breakers being our bosses. What moral authority do they have in criticising others or being the role models in our society? Nation Media Group stinks because of these rotten managers and the faster you get rid of them the better.

Your Highness, we care about our credibility and reputation. We will go to any length to protect our reputation and credibility. We, too, believe you care about your own credibility and reputation and the institutions associated with your holy name. Nation Centre has been gripped by tension for the past seven months and the faster you act the better. We trust and believe you care.

Moral decay

Your Highness, some of us have been working for Nation Media Group for more than 20 years and as insiders, we know that immorality is a deep rooted cancer here. We know for a fact that the dossier unleashed on the internet is not 100 per cent correct. But we believe it’s more than 90 per cent factually correct. These are managers we have worked with and the things the immoral things they do are no secret.

In fact, what was unleashed is just a tip of the iceberg. The majority of us are innocent and we are suffering from credibility crisis just because your advisers have slept on the job. It’s time you fire all managers in NMG implicated in the sex sleaze and those with questionable characters. It’s disheartening for the majority of the innocent when we go home after work and our spouses and children look us with suspicious eyes imaging we are part of the NMG brothel. We humbly appeal to you to act in time to save the image of this great company you founded.

The role of NMG as the watchdog

We understand that every new leadership comes up with its own management style. However, the policies and the values that a company stands for overrides individual ambitions and personal interests. NMG has for many years been respected for what it stands for – standing up with the masses and reading the public mood correctly. This is no longer the case.

We have noted with great concern NMG has for the past seven months continued to loose the top position it always enjoyed of being the voice of the people to other media house like the Standard Group. As noted above, Mr Gitahi’s leadership seems to have aligned itself with the Government in power at the expense of issues of public interest. And the public confident NMG enjoyed is being eroded at an alarming rate. The public no longer trusts NMG to be the truthful source of news.

Just to cite a few examples, NMG has turned a blind eye on the saga surrounding the bogus Artur brothers, international criminals given safe haven by powerful individuals in the current regime. The Standard Group capitalised on the saga and kept the public informed on what the duo were up to by continuously revealing any fresh details that emerges. But the scandal of the two foreigners was swept under the carpet in Nation Centre soon after Mr Gitahi replaced Mr Kiboro because he wants to please his political godfathers.

It was not shocking to see Daily Nation making the recent arrest of the Standard Group directors and editors for exposing the Government links to the bogus Artur brothers a filler news item. Those of us who were in the newsroom when police seized the directors and editors were shocked to see Mr Mwangi and Mr Odindo rejoicing about the issue. The two gave firm instructions to the Chief Subs Editor to down play the story claiming Daily Nation was going to give the Standard Group mileage if the story was given prominence. But the truth of the matter is that Mr Gitahi has sold NMG to the Kibaki regime and the new policy is that we see no evil and hear no evil as far as this regime is concerned.

Early this month, police raided Mathare slums and shot dead more than 30 people in a revenge attack after two policemen were killed by gunmen in the slum. All the media houses, NMG included, ignored issues of human rights abuse and channelled out the lies that police were telling. Although the police kept on saying that those killed were members of the banned Mungiki sect, none of the journalists covering the massacre bothered to dig beyond what they were being told by the police. All the media houses ended up reporting the lies from the police. None of the journalists bothered to dig out the history of the people killed, find out if they had a criminal history, talk to their families and those who knew them. It was the biggest conspiracy by the media to cover up the truth. That never happened during Mr Kiboro’s rein. Sadly, Nation was part of the big cover up.

Non-performers and duplication of roles

There are many joy-riders in NMG and they continue drawing huge salaries for roaming around the newsroom or just sleeping in their offices. There are so many duplicating posts which have been created in the Editorial Department on the advice of Mr Mwangi and Mr Odindo. The holders of these offices are rewarded because they are either girlfriends or friends of the two editors. Even the posts of Mr Mwangi and Mr Odindo duplicate roles and you can’t tell the difference yet they draw huge salaries and allowances. We believe the managers implicated in sex scandals have a lot of free time at their disposal and that is whey they resort to immoral acts to pass time and kill boredom.

In fact, Mr Mwangi is lucky not to have landed in jail over criminal acts like raping junior staff in his office and sexual harassment in the workplace. His friend, Mr Odindo, recently rewarded one of his girlfriends, Ms Mildred Ngesa, with a column in the Monday newspaper despite still protests from other journalists. Ms Ngesa is a poor writer and there are many better and polished writers who were over-looked in favour of Mr Odindo’s girlfriend. She was given the column after the previous well-respected and widely read columnist resigned after being frustrated by Mr Odindo.

It’s also common to find Mr Odindo and Mr Mwangi dozing off in their offices and snoring loudly in the afternoons or taking beer in their offices to kill boredom. We are sure this is not the kind of immorality that you would like to entertain in your company year after year. Time to act is now.

Politics, tribalism and corruption

The newsroom is sharply divided into different political and tribal camps due to poor leadership by Mr Mwangi and Mr Odindo. Different reporters and editors serve personal interests of their tribal chiefs and pay-masters and this influences the content published or aired by NMG media outlets. Stories are slanted to suit certain individuals and politicians. Other politicians are given total blackouts depending on which political or tribal divide one belongs. Politicians and other external forces still bribe editors and journalists to influence what is published or to push through their stories.

Mr Odindo is the worst hit by the cancer of tribalism. And because he holds a key office, most of the stories published by Daily Nation have to first suit his personal and tribal interest. For instance, he comes to the office every Sunday (although he is supposed to be off duty) in case Opposition leader Raila Odinga has a function so that he can ensure the politician from his tribe gets plum coverage. At many times, Mr Odindo has plucked other headlines from the layout and replaced them with Mr Odinga’s story. And he does not hide his open bias as far as political and tribal inclinations are concerned. During the referendum on the proposed New Constitution in 2005, Mr Odindo openly campaigned for the side that was being supported by Mr Odinga.

The same biasness was witnessed when ODM presidential aspirants were launching their visions if they were elected the next President of Kenya. Mr Odinga’s unveiling of his vision was done on a Sunday and Mr Odindo came to the office to personally handle the stories. He ordered the Chief Sub Editor to reserve three pages for the event and he personally chose the photos and stories to be used and he re-wrote them to suit his personal interest. He even did the dummy for the lay out of the stories. He never showed any interest when other ODM presidential aspirants unveiled their visions and most of them got fillers inside the newspaper. If Mr Odindo was fair, he should have ensured all the aspirants got a fair share of the coverage.

The newsroom has been polarised along tribalism and politics lines thanks to Mr Odindo and Mr Mwangi. Corruption is also rife in the newsroom and Mr Odindo and Mr Mwangi often kill stories touching on individuals who are their friends and relatives. Nation has perfected a policy of selectively exposing corrupt individuals. Money continues to change hand between external forces and individuals within the newsroom. Beneficiaries of mega corrupt deals like the Goldenberg and the Anglo Leasing are well known in the newsroom but there is no one to act. Those who are supposed to make tough decisions have their hands soiled with corrupt cash or sex scandals. This is the bitter truth that you don’t expect either Mr Gitahi or Mr Mwangi to let you know when they visit you in Paris.

These are just some of the major issues that we feel you should tackle as a matter of top priority for now. However, we will communicate with you on other issues in due course.

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  Nation Centre
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