CAPTION: Joe Muganda the CEO of Nation Media Group, is reaping the fruits of Nyakundi's online activism. Such a genius! Dwindling revenues have been evident in local media houses, with them posting lower profits and many other smaller players facing imminent extinction.
And the situation would be worse for them, if the countrywide fibre-optic cabling had been implemented, because Kenyans would be streaming proper content for less, using providers like Netflix.
But because the mainstream media houses have bribed Government and the Ministry of ICT to hamper efforts by private players to roll-out the fibre-optic infrastructure, we are stuck to watching shit content like Papa Shirandula, Inspekta Mwala and The Trend.
Nation Media Group has joined the fray of struggling media houses, who moonlight on Twitter, waiting for Cyprian Nyakundi to break a scandal, then pitching to the exposed persons, on strategies to clean up their images.
Other companies which have benefitted from Nyakundi's corruption exposè's are Twitter and competing bloggers like Abraham Mutai, who extorts clients claiming he can run counter-campaigns against scandals. Bidco has invested close to Kshs. 50 Million in a multi-platform campaign, aimed at cleaning up the image of the disgraced company. This involved documentaries, copy-paste writeups on Business Daily, Twitter campaigns and the likes.
Yet the same company wants bloggers to work for the for free. Like what do they take us for?
It's almost like Transcend Media. The company has been "anonymously" sending us documents of their court-cases, begging us to provide coverage for it, yet they don't want to pay. The same company duped us into their toxic campaign against Safaricom using the KPMG audit, and yet didn't pay for the airtime we allocated the story. Yet when the same companies go to mainstream media houses, they pay tens of million without flinching. I mean, what do they take bloggers for? Bidco may pay all the money in the world to Nation Media Group, but the truth will always find a way to manifest itself. It's high time people wake up to the realisation that the Internet and the growing number of smartphones, are more effective tools of communication than generic mainstream media campaigns. Recent statistics prove that anyone ignoring this critical constituency, is someone living in their own world.
Influencers are shifting and more and more voices are finding their foot using social media tools at their disposal. The days when everyone had to say "Good Morning" to AlyKhan Satchu on Twitter are long gone.
So to the Nation Media Group, perhaps you need Nyakundi more than you imagine. What a shame that an over 50-year old company, has to reap fruits of the work done by a blogger. And yet you can't let humanity breathe air in peace, claiming how you're business-guru's. Such rubbish!