Journalism Is A Profession! Not A Trade.

Photo: Marshal Yang (pexels.com)

Anyone Can Go Live. Not Everyone Should.

In 2021, the hosts of Capital FM’s The Lift Show laughed through a segment that should have demanded solemnity and strict professionalism. They were talking about Eunice Wangari, a young Kenyan woman who had just survived the horror of being pushed from a building for rejecting a man’s sexual advances. Instead of treating a crime with the professional integrity it deserved, the presenters turned her trauma into a punchline for cheap on-air banter. Although the backlash was swift and the station reprimanded them, the damage was already done.

At its heart, this failure highlights a polarising dilemma: is media practice defined strictly by professional credentials, or is it a space open to anyone with a microphone and keyboard? Some people say it’s one or the other, while some, often very few, would argue that it’s both. This is not a new conversation; it has been an ongoing point of discussion in the journalism industry and in university classrooms for decades.

Researchers Witschge & Nygren (2009) have argued that one of the challenges of regarding journalism as a profession is that it would go against the freedom of expression to demand some kind of legitimisation from those expressing themselves in the media. They therefore offer a middle ground of identifying it as a semi-profession, so as not to exclude non-professionals from the field of journalism.

However, this lenient "semi-professional" model faces resistance from foundational figures within the continent’s media landscape.

One notable journalist who championed this conversation and heavily disagreed with Witschge and Nygren's compromise was the legendary Kenyan editor and educator, Joe Kadhi. In his critical essay, Anglophone Africa: Journalists - puppets of the proprietors? Kadhi recounts a pivotal meeting where seasoned media practitioners gathered to dissect the survival of their craft. The group reached a sobering consensus: the unrestricted rush into journalism by people who were neither trained nor employed as journalists seemed to have damaged the dream of high standards of professionalism in African journalism. Interestingly, Kadhi penned those warnings back in the 1990s, yet here we are decades later, still having the exact same conversations today.

In order to properly analyse why this divide persists, we must start with key definitions.

Going by the Cambridge definition, a profession is any type of work that needs special training or a particular skill, often one that is respected because it involves a high level of education. Whereas they describe a trade as a job that especially needs special skills and involves working with your hands. The adage, "All trades are professions, but not all professions are trades," captures the friction in this topic perfectly. When applied to modern media, it yields a simple but crucial distinction: writers can be journalists, but not all writers are journalists.

Increase in Quantity, Decrease In Quality

Image: meta-media.fr

Decades later, Kadhi’s fears have become a reality, best exemplified by stations like NRG Radio. NRG has normalised treating broadcasting strictly as a trade by consistently prioritising viral social media influencers over qualified mass communication specialists. While critics blame media students for lacking personal branding, this hiring trend ignores the severe ethical consequences of bypassing professional training. Influencers are not the problem; the problem is that they operate without an ethical compass or accountability to a code of conduct.

This lack of training has accelerated the mainstream normalisation of the "gutter press" and tabloidisation. The rise of The Nairobian, the Kenya Monitor, The Leader, the Independent, Nairobi News, and Game Yetu set the stage for tabloids to be more acceptable and more mainstream. Academic studies on the rise of The Nairobian show that shifting media focus away from critical issues toward celebrity, gossip, and crime directly lowers journalistic standards and increases public cynicism.

The rise of social media has also played a helping hand in this, while it has improved how we consume news and allows us to get real-time updates on matters in the country and around the world. It has also come with the democratisation of news, where anyone can share eyewitness news and multimedia, further reshaping the role of journalism as a profession. The shift has come with concerns around the quality and reliability of news outlets and sources. Essentially removing the professional editing filters that separate fact from fiction.

Entertainment Over Ethics

This ethical erosion is most obvious in daily radio programming, where relationship surveillance has been commercialised as prime entertainment.

Stations like Kiss FM normalised this with segments like Busted, where callers report partners' suspected infidelity on air, while Classic FM has sustained a similar format during morning rush hour through Maina and King’angi. Dozens of vernacular stations have copied this template, turning messy, unverified private lives into public spectacles for a listener's dopamine high. This format presents severe societal dangers. It exploits real human trauma while evading the potential harm caused to participants, especially since listeners frequently question the authenticity of these staged narratives.

Furthermore, because these shows air during morning and evening rush hours, commuters, including school children travelling in matatus, are held captive to adult themes with absolutely no way to opt out.

The collapse of editorial standards makes it easier for misinformation, which the UN describes as the accidental spread of inaccurate information, to slip into the mainstream. It similarly paves the way for disinformation, which is inaccurate information deliberately spread to deceive and cause serious harm.

Misinformation: the accidental spread of inaccurate information. Disinformation: inaccurate information deliberately spread to deceive and cause serious harm.

When combined with sensationalised clickbait headlines designed purely for digital ad revenue, these trends show the realities of the overall decrease in journalistic standards.

Kenya technically possesses a comprehensive code of ethics covering accuracy, fairness, and sensational headlines, overseen by the Media Council of Kenya (MCK). However, as Joe Kadhi historically noted, while a lot of journalists voluntarily integrate these ethical codes into their craft, the situation would be entirely different if a strict professional organisation existed. Such a body would actually force all journalists to follow the code or risk being disciplined. If we put this thought into practice, we can certainly say that journalism is not yet treated as a true profession, despite the nominal existence of the MCK.

This lack of strong professional insulation leaves the industry deeply vulnerable, meaning that even established media houses with trained staff are easily crumbling under intense political and economic pressure. In fact, a study by the International Journal of Communication notes that this exact vulnerability is precisely where modern public distrust stems from.

The historic Reject Finance Bill protests offered a vivid, contemporary example of this corporate capture. When reports surfaced implicating Safaricom in user privacy breaches and the surveillance of protestors, alongside media coverage linking the telco to Social Health Authority (SHA) funding controversies, the economic retaliation was immediate. Rather than publicly disputing the claims, the telecommunications giant chose to punish the press, pulling its massive advertising revenue from the Nation Media Group (NMG). If they were innocent, why act guilty?

Conversely, NMG chose to protect its journalistic integrity and credibility by running the story anyway, actively defying its largest funder. This corporate bullying proves that the crisis in modern media is two-pronged: while entertainment platforms are hollowed out from within by a lack of professional training, traditional newsrooms are choked from without by corporate giants who use financial leverage to muzzle public interest journalism.

The Numbers Don’t Lie (But They Do Complicate Things)

This complex battle between professional standards and corporate capture is directly reflected in the changing attitudes of the Kenyan public. MCK’s report delved into the concerns that Kenyans have about the media; 28% of the respondents stated that they were concerned about the spread of false/misleading information and inadequate coverage of key issues, while Meltwater reports 82%.

Source: Media Council of Kenya

Despite these challenges, media trust has seen an increase from 75% (51.3% Some trust, 23.2% A lot of trust) in 2024 to 79% (58% Some trust, 21% A lot of trust) in 2025. While trust in media has grown, a closer look at the data shows that those who fairly trust the media are still higher than those who confidently trust the media. The most trusted media house is the Royal Media Group. When respondents were asked why they trusted the media house they selected, 45% stated that it was due to coverage of content relevance and public interest. Information timeliness and delivery were second at 33%. While these insights are valuable, the data leaves a critical question unanswered; the study would have been far more illuminating had the MCK dug deeper to define exactly what these "key public interest issues" are to the average Kenyan.

Another interesting result is that the gap between legacy media (TV, news, radio) and social media continues to grow. As of 2025, 39% (31% in 2024) of the respondents in the report use social media as their source for news; television remained at 31%, with radio dropping to 21% from 26% in 2024.

With the 2027 general elections looming just around the corner, this digital migration is set to reach a critical fever pitch. The online conversations we engage in, the media we consume, and share become very crucial as they feed into how our perspectives are shaped and we make decisions. The recent Reuters report echoed the same concern about the financial viability of quality journalism during the election year.

So, Where Do We Go From Here?

Image: Jeff Stapleton(pexels.com)

Following the news can be overstimulating and stressful, especially with a bulk load of information flowing in digital spaces. This causes some people to opt out of following the news altogether. To quote Lauren Duca, How to Start a Revolution, “Resist the temptation to shut down on the too-much-ness we all feel, and embrace the relief of understanding yourself as a perpetual student”.

We need to keep in mind that the main mission of a journalist is to empower us with information. Think of news as a starting point for research, where you get to see and understand what’s happening in the landscape (the country).

Similar to research, one doesn’t just read one journal and then claim to understand the whole topic; no, you read other journals to see what conclusions they have and if there are any similarities across the topic of research. This means reading different newspapers to understand the different angles used. Once you get the lay of the land, you will want a deeper understanding, which comes from commentary and analysis. As you go deeper into understanding your chosen topic of focus and interacting with different sources, challenge every piece of information that you consume with “Why?”

Use critical thinking when considering commentary on social media; the analysis shared by creators should be viewed more as polemic rather than journalism. When choosing your commentary and analysis creator, I would advise judging their content using the Journalism Code of Conduct (MCK website) as a guide. Be sure to also verify the information discussed before sharing it with others to avoid taking part in misinformation and disinformation.

Polemic: A piece of writing or a speech in which a person strongly attacks or defends a particular opinion, person, idea or set of beliefs - Cambridge Dictionary

It is also important to remember that while navigating the information shared in the media, we should also identify a key topic that we are keen to understand and follow. Similar to research, you pick a topic, and you dive into all the information that is available on said topic. Doing this will also help inform how one chooses to vote, as you will vote for the person who will include your topic of interest in their manifesto. Following local news, in this case, county news, will also help you stay up to date with what is happening in your community and issues affecting it.

Finally, have conversations, debate, and be open to learning and adapting when introduced to new information (obviously with sources cited). Exchanging information with others helps you understand people’s perspectives and helps reduce the echo chamber effect. This effect can also happen to those who are deemed as woke or liberal. Debating in this context is more about sharing factual information instead of emotion-based information; it’s not necessarily trying to change their perspective. Remember that some people could be shown all the evidence and still not believe it.

For fellow journalists, despite the quickness with which social media has made it possible to share breaking news, I believe there is a gap that can only be filled by you: investigative journalism. The role of sharing accurate and verified information will always be needed. Even with the rise of AI, your role to share verified information will still be needed. As it stands, 62% of Kenyans still can’t detect AI-generated content. Be the trusted and credible source for the people, and this will increase Media credibility and trust.

To wrap it up

I write this article as an analysis of an ongoing conversation amongst students and professional journalists. A conversation that, over the years, has seen traditional media meet new challengers and is continuously forced to choose between adapting or dying. An analysis of the challengers who have stepped up, the risks they have taken, and what the resulting power shift has cost us, including our trust in the media.

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Works Cited

1. Cambridge Dictionary. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://dictionary.cambridge.org/

2. Catherine Gicheru, G. N. (2025). Digital News Report Kenya. Retrieved from Reuters Institute: https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2025/kenya

3. Digital 2026 Kenya. (2026). Retrieved from Data Reportall: https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2026-kenya

4. Duca, L. (2019). How to Start A Revolution. California: Simon & Schuster.

5. Kadhi, J. S. (1999). Anglophone Africa: journalists–puppets of the proprietors. Ethics in journalism: A reader on their perception in the third world, 31-81.

6. Kiguta, J. W. (2018, February 16). The Impact of Social Media On Print Journalism: A Case Study of The Star Newspaper. Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya.

7. MCK. (2025). State of the Media. Nairobi: Media Council of Kenya.

8. UN. (2022). Retrieved from Understanding Hate Speech: https://www.un.org/en/hate-speech/understanding-hate-speech/faqs

9. Waceke, S. K. (2022). Effects of Social Media On News Publication: The Case of The Standard Group. Nairobi: University of Nairobi.

10. Witschge, T. &. (2009). Journalistic Work: A Profession Under Pressure? Journal of Media Business Studies 6(1), 37–59.