News that never is.

I have given up watching T.V. news. Not that it is not dramatic; on the other hand, it is quite dramatic and that is where the problem lies. The T.V. stations have not been showing news, but drama scripts which they write and which are acted by others, mostly politicians.Even on days like Sunday when there are barely enough happenings , we still have dramatic news. The news channels have even learnt to ask for our thoughts on how dramatic the news was, and make an extra buck while at it.

Politicians have been given prime slots in the news , even when they have nothing to say. When they completely lack anything to say, the news channels go ahead and say it for them .After all has been said and done, the same channels will then express their utter disgust at the behaviours of the politicians.They forget that the politicians were acting up for their dramatic script, given that they were guaranteed free prime time advertisement aka news.

Take an example of the small matter of ICC prosecutor Moreno Ocampo opening the Waki envelope. Ocampo had mentioned he would open the envelope as a passing comment in an interview with some news station in Europe. Our drama script writers then forced ardent watchers to watch excerpts of the interview. They then went ahead to explain how somebody's day -to-day work such as opening of envelopes would cause earth shifting occurrences in Kenya. Several politicians were then asked for their views and thoughts of a simple activity such as opening of envelopes.

The local media went short of promising viewers a live broadcast of the letter opening.They almost told us where Ocampo was born, who he dated and slept with and how this would impact on opening of an envelope. His saliva type and density, his fingernail physical characteristics were also up for analysis as they would all be involved in opening of the envelope. We were also almost told his average reading speed, what drink he would take that morning and during his tea break, what the weather conditions would be , the concentration of oxygen and other related phenomena to the waki list.All this in the name of innovative/ and relevant news.

In Kenya, we are more than obsessed with politics and political drama. Its a country where the political industry has grown at more than 10 % since 1992. It is a country where we have career politicians, complete with inter-part transfers and other useful political activities.

Politics is the news that we watch and read, and we shall analyze it to the last thread.

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