be professionals

BE PROFESSIONALS,
JANE MUGAMBI
08TH FEB 2010.
Print Journalist, radio, television presenters have been told to be ethical.
Speaking in a workshop organized by the media council of Kenya at Sportsman arms in Nanyuki town, Royal media news editor and a media veteran said that many presenters have turned to be advertisers.
He said that advertising and editorial activities cannot rhyme.
Mr. Njau went on to say that journalists should follow the code of conducts.
He said that the media should sell space and not interfere with the editorial department.
“It is very wrong for presenters to take a break from reading news and have a commercial, its very unethical” he added.
The media veteran added that the media in Kenya has since shifted from professionalism to being compromised by the politicians, and the commercials.
He said that Journalist should accept freedom of the media as a human right and exercise it freely.
Mr. Njau said that professionalism should be guided by the society where they should be responsible to viewers, listeners, readers And not government, proprietors and the commercials.
“What a journalist writes should be very decent, be responsible, accurate, fair play but we have diverted our professionalism to sex matters diverting from the call” Mr. Njau added.
He said that some presenters have turned to be advertisers of products and not going according to their professional and code of ethics.
“Some news anchors, presenters are seen in the teles while advertising commodities. it is not bad to earn another shilling outta the organization but are not exercising their education. They should leave being anchors and stay in advertising” Mr. Mutego Njau added.
He said warned the presenters on being engaged in the adverts saying that they should chose on line of duty and not being at two places at the same time.
Mr. Njau cited a case where his news anchor was involved in advertising a commodity where he said that the advert took the anchors job and decided to get into adverting without his will.
He however said that vernacular radio stations, radios and print media should not deviate from their common goal, idea and be swayed away by the commercials which he said are controlling the media for a very long time.
“Big companies have turned the media be dependent on them such that they “media” cannot publish any bad story on them for fear of lack of getting adverts from them” He added.
Concurring his sentiments were the lecturer of United States University University Joe Khadi said that research should done to identify new problems, suggest solutions saying that journalists have been made puppets by the advertising industry.
“Many are being lost in advertisings instead of sticking to their role of reading news and editing news. they should either leave the news department and join the advertising department since noone can do two jobs and they succeed”.Joe Khadi added.