A lot goes into decisions to put a journalist on TV. However in recent years, it has been claimed that a pretty face and nice figure is all you need, especially for women.
The result has been declining journalism standards across all media houses. Journalists with capacity to make great content but with not as good looks have been sidelined gradually and now TV stations are a shadow of their former selves.
Over the weekend, Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero made some really outlandish statement on how Sh200 million would stack up. He knew he was addressing a very gullible audience and did his best to exaggerate.
It was therefore a relief when NTV announced that they would be testing Kidero’s theory.
With disbelief, Kenyans watched as Trevor Ombija demonstrated why Kidero was wrong. Watch the clip.
It was quite depressing to watch Trevor count to 25. They did not bother to forward that part. My first thought was this was a tactic to make a news report of a length acceptable to the producer without really minding the quality.
Since Trevor was interested in 50 tiles, he could have employed quicker ways of getting to that. For instance counting to 10 tiles, and multiplying that by 5, or vice versa. But I guess counting to 25 added to the minutes.
However, that was not the worst part.
As a journalist, Trevor should be out to provide facts when politicians try to mislead. The affidavit by Mr Kiplangat clearly states that the bribe was delivered in US dollars, but when Kidero said that there’s no way Sh200 million can be passed through a car window, he was talking about Shillings. He is a politician and misleading is part of the playbook.
Not once in Trevor’s report did he highlight this. Instead of informing the public that the money was in $100 bills, Trevor made spent half the time counting tiles.
If he had not left out this very important part, he would only have counted one or two tiles but he didn’t want that, did he?
Obviously Kenyans felt Trevor was taking them for a ride. Here are some comments from YouTube.
Lol it's funny that he actually had time to count tiles and explain his height, like anyone cares @MkenyaJeffry @TrevorOmbija
— VW ⏳ (@VeshNice) February 1, 2016
Nigga has time to count tiles with his size 20 feet just to prove kidero wrong. SMH
— VW ⏳ (@VeshNice) February 1, 2016
@veshnice He's @trevorombija and he even ignored the fact that the money was in dollars just to make a good story for the news
— Jeffry Mkenya (@MkenyaJeffry) February 1, 2016
Lmao! Trevor Ombija busy interviewing the tiles on how much money it can hold.
Your Kenyan journalists.
— #CancerSoldier (@Gsquare94) February 1, 2016
And to have a sense of what $2 million in $100 bills would look like, here’s a clip from TMZ.
