Revealed: Senior Journalists Fired By NMG So Far

The Nation Media Group (NMG) on Wednesday, November 30 began its process of reducing the number of its workforce, with senior editors among the big names to be affected by the axe.

The regional media house had started issuing redundancy letters to the affected employees hours after the Group's Chief Executive Officer Stephen Gitagama had announced in a notice of the intention to reorganise its operations.

Insiders who spoke to Viral Tea revealed that one of the biggest names to be affected by the retrenchment exercise is Churchill Otieno, who has been the Head of News and Managing Editor at NMG.

Kenya Editors Guild president Churchill Otieno. /STANDARD DIGITAL

Churchill Otieno

The President of the Kenya Editors Guild (KEG) has been at Nation since 2001 where he began as an Internet Sub Editor before rising through the ranks over the years in multiple roles.

As an Editor of Online and New Content, he led a core team to drive Nation journalism on digital platforms, champion newsroom culture change for new story formats and lead content innovation into emerging frontiers.

As the Head of Digital Development and Learning, he oversaw design and development of Nation.Africa newsroom, driving change and planning publishing tools, including the ecosystem for content creation, programming and distribution for the consistent delivery of a news product that is both an editorial and a commercial success.

He is currently serving his last term as KEG president, a welfare organization representing senior journalists in Kenya.

Vincent Achuka

Another journalist affected by the big chop is senior investigative journalist Vincent Achuka. He was majoring in investigations, analysis and features with specific interests in crime, human interest stories, infrastructure transport, aviation, business and urban trends.

He had previously worked at the Standard Media Group (SMG)'s flagship newspaper where he moved to in February 2017 after writing for the Sunday Nation. He had a stint at the Ghetto Mirror, a community newspaper ran by Shining Hope for Communities-an international NGO that focuses on social issues in the informal settlements of Nairobi.

In between he freelanced for South Africa’s Sunday Times, UKs Think Africa Press and Next City in New York majorly writing features about Kenya’s slums. He is a multi-award winning journalist and in 2014, he won first runners up for the good governance reporting award by the Media Council of Kenya (MCK) for his his investigative story “Gaza, the new teenage killer gang calling the shots in Nairobi’s Eastlands”.

On the same year, he was awarded the tourism story of the year in the Annual Journalism Excellence Awards by the MCK for his 2013 “Slum tourism, the new fad for tourists in Kenya,” which talked about the rise of slums as an attraction for tourists and the need for Kenya to regulate and adopt as part of its Vision 2030 objectives as South Africa and India have done.

Other Big Names

Others affected by the mass firings include Managing Editor, Saturday Nation, Guchu Ndung’u, Peter Ngare, long-serving managing editor for Taifa Leo, NMG’s Kiswahili publication, News editor for Nation.Africa, Harry Misiko, news reporter Silas Apolo and photo editor Joan Pereruan.

The media house which runs Daily Nation, NTV, Taifa Leo, Business Daily, Nation FM and online publishers such as Nairobi News had restructured itself to boost its business transformation agenda to assure success in the long term.

"Regrettably, this refocus will result in a reorganisation of our workforce. This is an extremely difficult decision in view of the prevailing business environment. This exercise will be carried out with utmost dignity and in accordance with the Labour Laws of Kenya. We will strive to provide all the necessary support to help those affected to manage the transition."

"While these changes are maybe unsettling, I am confident that we are collectively moving in the right direction. I, therefore, call upon each one of us to embrace the changes and champion our mission as we build the NMG of the future. I look forward to your support in the days ahead," Gitagama stated.

More letters of termination continue to be issued today. This comes on the back of media houses such as Standard Media Group (SMG) and BBC planning to fire their staff en masse.