MEDIA SCENE
The Place Of
Traditional Media In A
Digital World
By Robert Wamai
The debate about digital media
being the death knell of traditional
media, especially newspapers,
has been going on for the last twenty
years or so. It dates back to around 2005,
when the use of the internet, especially,
in the developing world was becoming
ubiquitous.
Robert G. Picard a writer at Reuters
Institute for the Study of Journalism at the
University of Oxford has done extensive
research on this topic for the last two
decades. Writing in 2005 he began one
of his articles by giving an example of a
Harvard graduate going for an interview
at the New York Times. The graduate
was asked why she would want to pursue
a career in an industry that probably
‘would not survive the decade’. Though
this prediction has not entirely come to
pass, there is no doubt that globally, the
newspaper industry is facing an uncertain
future. Covid-19 pandemic, resulting
in diminished advertising budgets and
falling copy sales, has added fuel to the
fire. The consequent extensive staff layoffs
in the media ever witnessed in Kenya, has
ignited more debates about the future of
traditional media especially among the
media fraternity.
This predicament led to the organizing
committee of Old Yorkists, the Lenana
School alumni, to host a webinar titled
The Place of Traditional Media in a
Digital World. This webinar featured two
seasoned journalists, Wachira Waruru,
MD Royal Media Services and Macharia
Gaitho former Head of Special Projects
Nation Media Group, and a trustee of The
Kenya Writers Guild.
The topic caught my attention as I spent
a considerable part of my working life
in media and advertising. I cut my teeth
working as a commission salesperson
at Financial Review before moving to
Parents Magazine and then onto the
advertising agency arena. Spending time
with journalists must have triggered my
interest in writing though it lay bubbling
beneath the surface until Marketing Africa
came along. The Webinar was therefore
close to my heart. Macharia and Wachira,
who have spent all their working lives in
the media, not only shared their thoughts
but engaged us, listeners, in a lively debate.
Through the debate, it was evident that
traditional media, though at crossroads,
means a lot to them. They were, therefore,
not just igniting a lively debate, but also
searching for answers about an industry
which they have invested so much in.
Traditional media has been visited by two
uninvited guests: the internet, which is
slowly turning into the life of the party,
taking the shine away from the host;
and Covid-19, which in all respect, has
switched off the lights and is threatening
to end the party prematurely. So the
owners, journalists, and consumers of
traditional media, especially print media,
are urgently seeking for answers about its
future. “When did the rain start beating
us? What next? Is there light at the end of
the tunnel? Can we co-exist with digital
media? When the dust of the pandemic
finally settles, what will be left in its wake?
More importantly, what can we do to
survive and even thrive if at all?” they ask.
I’ll focus more on print media as it’s the
one declining faster. Electronic media
is faring much better and has seen a
growth in consumption despite a fall in
advertising revenue during this pandemic.
I went beyond the webinar searching for
information to enrich this piece, and from
my research, it can be deduced that the
decline of traditional media, especially
newspapers began long before the Internet.
Robert G. Picard points out that in
America newspaper circulation started
falling as far back as 1984 and by 2005
had dropped by 15%. Kenya is different in
this respect for the industry was vibrant
until about 2010. Macharia alluded
to this by saying ‘the ground shifted
long before Covid as newspaper copy
sales and readership started falling and
soon advertising revenue. In fact, in the
newsroom at the Nation Media Group
five or so years ago, they used to say ‘our
readers are dying.’ Another journalist,
Jaindi Kisero, former Managing Editor
Economic Affairs at NMG, recently wrote,
with candour, ‘Without a doubt, Covid-19
is a major contributor to their dwindling
fortunes. We, however, must agree that
this began long before the pandemic. In
analysing the situation, we can go back
to the famous statement by Mr. Warren
Buffet: Only when the tide goes down do
you discover who’s been swimming naked.’
If neither the internet nor Covid-19
pandemic are fully to blame what then is
the underlying cause? Robert G. Picard
wrote that, ‘the major decline in newspaper
readership is actually due to a generational
gap rather than a switch in behaviour
from established newspaper readers’ He
continuous ‘the resounding implication
is that generational news-consumption
patterns are of far greater significance
to the well-being of the industry than
competition from the Internet.’ Or Covid,
I must add.
With the internet, the print industry begun
to feel its effects and given the nature of
business its fortunes started declining.
Edward Roussel, the digital editor of the
Telegraph Media Group, writing in 2008,
went on to say that ‘the print media suffers
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