{UAH} Ocen, WBK//Hilary Ngweno reveals how Moi chose Kibaki as VP

Folks;

This is some interesting tidbit on the power of the press at the time Moi ascended to power. Which is not entirely surprising at that time, because Kenya had a slew of high-octave journalists.

Most of the editors had replaced expatriates at independence, and commanded respect and were on first-name basis with the new crop of leaders.

It's no wonder that Moi bought Ngweno's Nairobi Times newspapers and changed it Kenya Times.

Pojim

Media has not failed Kenya, it has only failed itself 

By Dr Duncan Omanga Updated Friday, January 16th 2015 

At a recent public lecture in Moi University, delivered by Hillary Ngweno, arguably Kenya's father of journalism, the celebrated journalist and publisher made an interesting revelation. 

It was one that highlighted the critical role Kenyan media has played in shaping and directing public opinion. At the time, shortly after he took power in 1978, then President Moi was undecided on who to appoint Vice President. As the editor of the politically astute The Weekly Review, Ngweno was an extremely important opinion shaper and the power elite at the time knew it. 

Early one morning, he received a call from then powerful AG, Charles Njonjo for an appointment with the president. He found the AG and President Moi waiting at Office of the President on Harambee Avenue. The meeting was brief. They sought his opinion on the suitability of one Mwai Kibaki becoming the next VP. Following this meeting, the cover of The Weekly Review carried a picture of a youthful Mwai Kibaki with the headline Mwai Kibaki: A Rising Star. 

With rich analysis and well-researched articles on the matter, The Weekly Review ushered a barely known politician to the public's imagination and days later, Mwai Kibaki was appointed President Moi's first Vice President. Vibrant media I use this illustration to respond to Prof Egara Kabaji's blanket condemnation of the Kenyan Media, published in this paper last week. According to the professor, Kenyan media and the public at large have been living in an illusion of owning one of the most vibrant media on the continent. He adds that the media is in deep slumber and has totally failed to appreciate the power it wields. He goes on to blast Kenyan journalism as being relegated to merely reporting of "who said what where" and that professionalism in the trade has gone to the dogs. He then concludes by saying that part of the problem could be the highly "theoretical" training offered at journalism schools. First, the obvious contradiction that one meets in the lamentations of Kabaji is the fact of Kenyan media having failed and his former students, working in the same media, having succeeded. This is not possible. But still, the professor has extremely valid points on the status of the Kenyan Media. However, and as Hilary Ngweno's anecdote shows, even at a time of strong arm political rule, Kenyan media played a critical role in agenda setting. The major blunder that Kabaji makes is to take an ahistorical view of Kenya's media landscape and extrapolate recent media failings to an entire epoch of newswriting. In being ahistorical in his evaluation of the media scene, he fails to consider the role of time and space insofar as the growth and texture of Kenya's media is concerned.  
Read more at: http://www.sde.co.ke/thenairobian/article/2000148139/media-has-not-failed-kenya-it-has-only-failed-itself