Eight years ago, the Nairobi Star (The Star) hit the streets of Nairobi with a bang. Just like its stable mate
Kiss FM had earlier done to radio, the newspaper dramatically and drastically changed the local print media scene, hitting the street with a revolutionary new way of delivering news and telling stories.
On that cold July morning on Tuesday in 2007, the initial edition of the Star warmed the hearts of Nairobians by running a human interest headline story that told of an assistant minister who had confessed to procuring abortions for nuns. “I helped nuns to get abortions,” screamed the page one story.
According to the story, not only did the assistant minister confess to procuring abortions for nuns, but he allegedly had provided the same service to girlfriends of Catholic priests. This he had done while working as a gynaecologist but so did other colleagues of his, he claimed.
Page three of that day’s Nairobi Star had photos of mini-skirted Star girls and dignitaries during the launch of the newspaper the previous night.
On page 10, the leader spoke of the new Star that was born that day with a fresh approach to the city’s news and features. The editor promised readers that the paper would be a disinterested party that would be free of all interests. “We want to be a paper that will, put simply tell it as it is”.
In the very first ‘5 min interview’ , the Nairobi Star interviewed Adopt-a-light managing director Esther Passaris, who told the world how poor she was at cooking, but good at finding solutions. Passaris in that conversation said she would have made a formidable politician if she had started early as she believed she was born one.
On Wayua Muli’s ‘Word is’ page, two media personalities took prominence with Jeff Koinange speaking out on his departure from CNN and an alleged rape accusation. It also told of Tom Mshindi landing a job as the managing director of Nation Media Group’s Uganda concerns. Jeff had explained in a media statement that his reasons for leaving CNN were between the news organisation and himself.” It had nothing to do with a story I did from Nigeria’s volatile Niger delta”. He also added that a Swede, who had accused him of rape on her blog site, was only doing so to extract revenge.
‘Word is’ then noted that Mshindi, a former CEO of the Standard Group who “has been languishing” at KBC Channel 2 had got the Kampala job that would see him take charge of the Monitor newspaper, K-FM radio and NTV Uganda. The page also hosted a photograph of a charming Princess Maxima of Netherlands with then President Mwai Kibaki.
In what was billed as the first in a series of columns by 'this noted Kenyan entrepreneur’, Kamlesh Pattni wrote a business article on how to start a successful business. His column on page 23 was aptly titled, ‘the Midas Touch’. In that initial article, he expounded on five important points that one needs to consider before starting a business.
In sports on the back page, the Nairobi Star ran a story on how tennis champion Venus Williams survived a “hair-raising” third round match against Akiko Morigami of Japan in London.
That day’s leader concluded by calling its Nairobi readers, the stars. Hopefully that has been so even for the larger readership of the country-wide distributed, the Star.
