A student, a diplomat, a priest and a philosopher this week summarized what ails our journalism, and suggested what could improve things.

The random opinions showed that, a) the public belittles media when journalists fail to level with them, b) our news is rarely comprehensive; c) there is insufficient expert analysis on issues; and d) we have no ideology to shape where our journalism is going.

Charles, a university student; Peter, a public affairs attaché at a local embassy; Father Joseph, a missionary priest; and Dr. Stephen, a Philosophy lecturer, all spoke on separate and unrelated occasions. But unknown to each, they collectively hit all the vital points.

Charles was a victim of an annoying media practice. He complained bitterly about being misquoted and his complete identity revealed without his permission in a campus newspaper. Charles had sat in a matatu with a colleague, a student journalist, who asked him what he thought about combining work and school. He rattled on an on about how “lecturers treat them like children” and did not understand that working students had other responsibilities. Next thing Charles knew, his views were published in a university newspaper. “I didn’t even know the newspaper existed!” he complained later.

Such does the media rub unsuspecting public the wrong way. This column wrote July 3 that dealing with the media is a lot like dancing with a Doberman. You never know if the mbwa kali is going to lick your face, or rip your throat out. People express resentment at being unfairly taken advantage of by the media. Be warned. When you talk to a journalist, you may be rattling to an entire nation.

Two points can be drawn here.

One, it would help if journalists fully disclosed their identities to news subjects, leaving them in little doubt that everything said is on the record and can be published. It boosts professional outlook when at a personal encounter a reporter levels up: “This is who I am. This is what I do.” Of course, this would instantly put sources on their guard and probably suck the juice out of great quotes. But it is nothing compared to fraudulently luring a source into a compromising situation.

Two, a college-educated source or one with public exposure is in no position to claim ignorance of traditional media practice.

Then there is Peter’s charge, that our news reporting is often scurried and told in snippets. Anyone who has not been around takes a long time to figure out what’s going on, he said. KTN’s top three news items on Thursday evening come to mind.

• A Parliamentary Security Committee was barred from inspecting the Sh6 billion cocaine stock by Police Commissioner Maj-Gen Hussein Ali, who told them they needed a court order.
• Chief Justice Evan Gicheru has appointed a three-judge bench to hear a case aimed at stopping the Attorney General from publishing the new Constitution Bill.
• The Government has dissolved the executive committees of the trouble-ridden National Council of NGOs.

If you didn’t watch the news for a week, you would have no idea what KTN was talking about. “It is like walking into the middle of a soap opera and asking, ‘Why is she slapping him?’” said Peter. You have no background. You have nothing to peg the story on. You are summarily lost.

Well, no one is suggesting that every news item run with five paragraphs of background narrative. That would be repetitive, boring and absurd. But news editors can quickly fix this, by insisting on a nut graf for every story. Placed high up in the story, the nut graf is a quick paragraph that answers the “so-what” question. It is the peg on which a story is tied. It tells the audience the significance of the story, what the story is really about.

Now to Father Joseph’s claim that our journalism lacks sufficient analysis. Journalism, said the priest, is not just about who said what and who did what. It is imperative that journalism exhaustively pursue issues behind the news. People must know how the news will affect their lives.

“It is your duty to say that [Finance Minister David] Mwiraria is a thief,” he said, “if the minister insists on holding pensions until retirement age.”

The priest was reacting to the recent government announcement that a bill was on the way to parliament to prevent all workers from accessing their pensions before retirement age.

“Years ago, my pension was Sh600, and I could buy a car,” said Father Joseph figuratively. “Now, it could be Sh12,000, but I can only buy a bicycle. That’s stealing. Give the people their money whenever they leave work, and let them invest it. It’s their money.”

Every significant news item must have parallel expert analysis.

Finally, the case for ideology. Our journalism is superficial and shallow, said Dr. Stephen, because the country never developed a collective principle to shape it. So, we roam in the dark. Hiding behind self-defined news values, media criteria for prioritising news items, we cover everything, or anything, at random. Every news house can pick its own partisan agenda and proceed to harp at it. The big picture is often missing.

People who are familiar with global media trends are conscious of four broad philosophies that have historically shaped the practice – Authoritarianism, Libertarianism, Communism, and Social Responsibility. It’s hard to put a finger on the roots of Kenya’s practice, or where it’s going, for that matter.