This archive report was first published on 20 August 2019.
As of 2019, the Kenyan media industry is facing a crisis, with declining circulation figures and a hemorrhaging of journalists.
According to a Pew Research analysis, 2018 was the worst year yet for newspaper circulation, with the lowest numbers since 1940.
Major newspaper companies and digital publications like Buzzfeed and Huffpost announced a series of layoffs in 2019, further exacerbating the problem.
Research by Pew Research has shown that newspaper jobs have declined by 45 per cent between 2008 and 2017, and even the rise of jobs within digital publications is not enough to cover for the losses.
Editors may not readily admit it, but circulation figures are not as luring as they were in 2012-2014.
Newsrooms are losing journalists to PR, academia, and corporate communication, and the industry is no longer in its golden age.
Journalists used to take home eye-watering bonuses three times their salaries, but those days are gone.
There has been a scramble for a solution, with buzzwords like Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Augmented and Virtual Reality being thrown around.
However, I'd like to urge my media colleagues to step back and focus on the most important thing: storytelling.
Media innovation is not about tech and big buzzwords, but about telling a good story in different, exciting, and convenient formats.
It's about telling stories that resonate with readers, stories that readers care about, and stories with a high potential for engagement with an otherwise busy audience.
There has been a discussion on whether Kenyan media can sell journalism, and whether a paywall would work in Kenya.
My simple answer is yes, but we must be aware of some hard facts.
First, we don't know if Kenyans are willing to pay for news, and global rates for willingness to pay for news are dismal except for Nordic countries like Norway and Sweden.
Journalism in Kenya and the world over has competition from 'more interesting' media bundles like Netflix and Amazon Prime.
According to the latest 'Digital News Report' study, only seven per cent of readers under the age of 45 would pick an online news subscription if they had the option to have only one paid subscription for a year.
However, I see an opportunity in this challenge, and I think Kenyan media could experiment with a paywall by using a simple strategy.
First, let the paid content be a completely different product, with a focus on groundbreaking investigative stories.
Present these stories in exciting formats, and then put up a paywall.
Would Kenyan readers pay for such? I don't know, but I know I would pay top dollar for a superbly written piece of Kenyan journalism.
