One of the chapters in Gerard Loughran's new book on the history of Kenya's Nation newspaper is prefaced with a quote from Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States:
"Were it left for me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."
But because we surely do have governments, the real-world challenge is whether we will have newspapers that consistently act as courageous, honest and lively guardians of the public interest. That challenge may be especially formidable in Africa. The continent's comparatively young nation-states are still suffering the after-effects of colonialism and, as Loughran points out, African societies continue to be plagued by poverty, disease and illiteracy.
"Birth of a Nation: The Story of a Newspaper in Kenya" (published by I.B. Tauris) shows the obstacles and dangers faced by one particular media outlet during its 50-year history. And although Loughran worked for more than a dozen years in senior editorial positions at the Nation, his book presents a fair and thorough account of the paper's failures as well as its successes. It's doubtful that an outsider would have produced a more rigorous assessment, and it's likely that an author lacking Loughran's insider knowledge and contacts would have missed out on some of the anecdotes and nuances that make "Birth" an absorbing, though demanding, read.
The book also recounts Kenya's own achievements and shortcomings during its 47 years of independence. Indeed, the Nation's story, as told by Loughran, runs in tandem with the nation's story.
"Birth" does have some defects, however.
Loughran overreaches in the book's opening chapter where he describes an attempt in 1976 by President Jomo Kenyatta to install his nephew as chairman of the Nation's publishing company. The paper's majority owner at that time, the Aga Khan, rejected Kenyatta's overture on the grounds that control by the ruling family would fatally compromise the Nation's credibility. The Aga Khan's decision was both brave and grave. To Loughran, however, "it is hardly an exaggeration to suggest that, in clinging so stubbornly to its independence, the Nation changed the course of Kenya's history."
Actually, that claim may well be an exaggeration. Who can say what would have happened if the Aga Khan had caved under Kenyatta's pressure? Perhaps another newspaper would have arisen to play the watchdog role—perhaps even more effectively than the Nation has. Maybe Kenya's history wouldn't have changed much at all.
The Aga Khan's involvement with the Nation is a sensitive topic, and Loughran handles it candidly and fairly. As the wealthy, Paris-based, Asian leader of a worldwide Islamic sect, the Aga Khan has been viewed by some Kenyans as an ill-intentioned outsider, even though he spent his childhood in Nairobi and has underwritten many development projects in Kenya. Resentment has also been expressed in regard to his role as the founding financier of a newspaper that has regularly irked powerful politicians. Loughran points out that as recently as 1998, a government-owned daily was denouncing the Nation as part of the "Kenya-based, Paris-owned Aga Khan media group."
Such attacks usually occur because offended parties are unable to rebut the Nation's reporting and thus seek to sap readers' trust in the paper by suggesting that it is controlled by a sinister foreign force. But there has been nothing sinister about the Aga Khan's role. As Loughran notes, he has maintained a hands-off posture regarding the Nation's editorial contents, insisting only that the paper avoid partisan entanglements and strive mightily for accuracy and objectivity. The Aga Khan is also no longer the majority owner of what has become a publicly traded company.
It's nonetheless true that without the Aga Khan's money, the Nation would not have been born, nor would it have survived the financial losses incurred during its infancy. Loughran acknowledges as much, saying "the records show the Aga Khan came through in a crisis during the difficult early years." Yet Loughran also writes, "A widely held view in Kenya and elsewhere that the Nation succeeded because it had access to an unceasing river of gold could not be farther from the truth."
It's not so much a contradiction as it is a lack of clarity on a cloudy matter.
The book's many strengths more than compensate for a few weaknesses, however. "Birth" is particularly adroit in showing the enormous difficulties the Nation struggled to overcome in its aspiration to be a professionally written, evenhanded and probing source of news. Initially, it was the product of a group of white expatriates, most of whom were trained as journalists but who nevertheless could be myopic in their coverage. Loughran recalls that in the period prior to independence the Nation "seemed to speak to a white audience rather than an African or even a multiracial one," with its choice of stories often reflected through "a British lens."
To their credit, however, the paper's white overseers were committed to putting editorial control in black hands. Africans gradually came to represent the overwhelming majority of newsgathering and editing personnel, to the point where expatriates today account for less than one percent of editorial staff.
But that transition meant empowering many young journalists with little professional training. And these neophytes were occasionally encumbered by partisan bias. During the Nation's first decades, reporters worked for low wages in unpleasant conditions and on antiquated equipment. It is therefore unsurprising that the paper made numerous errors of fact and committed some hilarious stylistic gaffes. And at least a couple of times, its mistakes and misjudgments badly damaged the paper's reputation, as Loughran also documents.
Kenya's political leaders—themselves generally inexperienced and insecure in the years following independence—simultaneously pressed the Nation to refrain from critical reporting. The argument was that economic development must come first, last and always, and that the media's proper role was to exhibit solidarity with the Kenyan government. Demands that the paper respect those in authority sometimes involved threats of violence and recourse to outright repression. Six Nation journalists were arrested in 1981, for example, and the paper was temporarily banned from covering Parliament eight years later.
Self-censorship has regularly resulted, Loughran observes. And the Nation has felt it necessary at times to print apologies to aggrieved power brokers, even when apologies were not warranted. It is vital to note in this context—and Loughran does so—that the Kenyan constitution contains no guarantee of freedom of the press.
The Nation has also acted courageously, even defiantly, on issues of great import to Kenya. For many years, it was a lonely voice in support of a multiparty political system, insisting that a single-party state is inimical to democratic governance. The paper has exposed corruption on a staggering scale, refusing to overlook the looting of the public treasury despite threats of retribution as well as claims that it was undermining confidence in national institutions.
Kenyans have rewarded the Nation for its, on balance, credible and creditable performance by making it the top-selling newspaper in the country—by far. The Nation Media Group has become one of the biggest enterprises of its kind in all Africa, with 1,000-plus employees and more than a dozen print titles, in Kiswahili as well as in English, along with radio and TV outlets. Consistent with the Aga Khan's founding vision of a publishing venture spanning East Africa, the company now owns media properties in Tanzania and Uganda.
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"Did we do our best?" Loughran asks in an afterword to his 328-page book. Those in charge of the Nation, he suggests, would have needed "near-superhuman qualities" for the paper to have achieved excellence in all respects and at all times. But the Nation, like every newspaper everywhere, is run by fallible humans.
Moreover, Nation decision-makers have "had to contend with the commercial requirements of the ownership, hostility from successive governments, the demands of an intelligent, aspiring staff and the daily scrutiny of a highly politicized readership—all this whilst guiding the paper faithfully by its founding slogan, 'The truth shall make you free.' Imprisonment, personal violence, blackmail, bribery and disinformation are not problems which normally appear on the docket of a Western editor," Loughran adds. "For many Nation employees, they were inescapable constituents of the working life."
"Did we do our best?" Even after half a century, it's too soon to pass judgment on a newspaper that continues to learn from its errors and that strives to overcome its shortcomings. Apply the question to "Birth of a Nation," however, and the answer can only be affirmative.
Undoubtedly, Loughran did his best in researching and composing this unique examination of an African newspaper. And not just that—his best has resulted in something of great value.
Kevin Kelley has been the U.S. correspondent for the Nation Media Group for the past 20 years. He also teaches journalism part-time at St Michael's College in the state of Vermont.
