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The Public Editor

Star Correspondents: The Paper’s Foot Soldiers

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Journalist protect their cameras from rain as the cover the World Mental Health Day at the Mathari Hospital yesterday. Photo/Monicah Mwangi

Several queries and criticisms about stories in the Star’s regional pages have led me to think readers might appreciate a bit of insight into the role of the paper’s correspondents. Currently, the Star has about 60 such correspondents, twice as many as the number of reporters in the Nairobi newsroom. They are the paper’s foot soldiers: the ones who cover the accidents, arrests and local scandals (along with an occasio...

Twitter and Facebook: Powerful But Dangerous

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TIMELY UPDATES: The star's facebook page

On March 7, the Star carried an exclusive interview with Jonathan Moi as its front page lead story. Moi was quoted as denying claims in an article by John Ward in the Nairobi Law Monthly that he was responsible for the murder of Ward’s daughter 24 years ago.Hot story, for sure. But not as exclusive as the Star might have liked, since two reporters who knew about the piece had mentioned it on their Facebook pages the night before. When St...

How Journalists Can Handle Opinion Polls

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CHALLENGE:  Market and Social Research Association members. From left, James Naikuni, Angela Ambitho, Maggie Muringa and Caesar Handa during a media briefing on political opinion polling at Norfolk hotel in Nairobi last month. Photo/HEZRON NJOROGE

On February 2, the Star’s front-page story reported that, according to a Strategic Research poll taken in late January, Raila was leading Uhuru by 13 points. Five days later, the Star’s front-page story reported that, according to an Ipsos-Synovate poll taken at almost the same time, Raila was leading Uhuru by only seven points.After the second story ran, one reader asked on the Star website, “If sampling is properly done, an...

Chirchir had egg on his face, but so did the Star

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Military spokes person Emmanuel Chirchir. Photo/Monicah Mwangi

On January 12, the Star carried a page 2 story about a Kenyan supposedly being stoned to death by al Shabaab members in Somalia. As I learned by mid-morning from alert reader Vincent Chepkwony, the account and accompanying photos—supplied by the Kenyan military’s twitterer-in-chief, Major Emmanuel Chirchir—were of a 2009 event that had nothing to do with either Kenya or al Shabaab. The misinformation from Chirchir (also repor...

Sex, Politics And Money: A Holiday Grab-Bag

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NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART: A man reads a newspaper at a vendor's stand in Nairobi.

On several occasions over the past few months, I’ve received only one or two complaints about a particular story or practice of the Star—not enough, in my view, to merit a whole column. But the complaints have stuck in my mind because of the issues they raise, and as the year comes to a close I’d like to briefly discuss three of them.The first involves a Star cartoon. Political cartoons have a special power to cause outrage, ...
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