Former President Uhuru Kenya once told Kenyans that newspapers are for wrapping meat.
The former President made the remarks in May 2015 in Bomet.
He was responding to claims in the media that the then Deputy President William Ruto, now the President, was losing his grip of Rift Valley under competition from Bomet Governor Isaac Ruto.
The media had become critical of Kenyatta’s relationship with his then deputy Ruto, but the former President dismissed these reports by claiming newspapers were biased.
This statement did not go well for newspapers, which were already struggling.
Newspapers are slowly getting wiped out and may end up extinct.
Street vendors who used to make a killing by selling the commodity have slowly started doing other trades.
Regional papers that produce monthly issues could be doing worse than national newspapers.
Meru used to have several regional papers, but now only two are left.
Patrick Muriungi, a veteran journalist who worked with the Standard newspaper for 12 years before opening the monthly paper County Focus in December 2010, said times have changed.
"During that time regional newspapers did not encounter many challenges as we sold a lot of copies when we printed," he said.
County Focus used to sell in Isiolo, Laikipia, Meru and Tharaka Nithi counties. "We were printing about 20,000 copies per month."
His company ran into financial headwinds during the Covid -19 pandemic. It had to close down some offices and scale down personnel.
Muriungi said they used to do monthly copies promptly but are now forced to skip some months.
He urged the national government to subsidise the taxes on media houses.
"The government should reduce it by at least 10-14 per cent. It would save so many media companies from closing down and many journalists from being rendered jobless," Muriungi said.
Muriungi said many people are now reading news on social media, and so they have created a website.
"This is also a challenge because not many people in rural areas have smartphones to be able to read articles," he said.
He said journalists working in newspapers should look for alternatives before it is too late for them as the future of newspapers is bleak.
COVID, TAXES STRAIN
Mwenda Micheni, who owns County Review, said he started the regional paper in 2013.
"We started in July 2013, the focus was grassroots community news," Micheni said.
"It means those untold stories in the villages, stories around county governments and other county issues that would not get space in the national papers."
At some point, they started a sort of training mentorship programme for young journalists.
"We could not manage to employ journalists on a permanent basis," he said.
"We would get fresh graduates and would give them the skills for one year, we mentor them for a year and release them into the market if they get an opportunity, and if not, we stay with them until they get greener pastures."
They ran well for some time but when the Covid-19 pandemic came, they were hit financially.
The veteran journalist, who formerly worked as an editor with Nation Media Group, said his media house was once supported under a programme called 'Community Media Fund'.
This was through a partnership with Ford Foundation and Bloomberg Media Africa, managed by Hivos under the themes: public finance accountability and finance inclusion.
"We were supported to do research and content around financial literacy, financial management and corruption around counties," he said.
"The programme went on for a year."
Micheni said the funding sustained the media house, which had more than 10 journalists at the time.
The model of the media house changed a little bit and they started focusing more on audit queries and misappropriation of funds.
"When you are pursuing investigative stuff, a lot of people are uncomfortable, and whatever adverts you were getting from them, now you miss out," he said.
He said in 2019, they were were sued for defamation.
"When a small publication like ours is taken to court and you are spending on a lawyer and other things, it is a big deal," he said.
"It also hit us financially, although the complainant later withdrew the case and we settled out of court."
We closed down when the pandemic hit, and by time the country resumed normalcy, we were at zero again and had to start afresh
Micheni said after the one-year funding project for community media ended, they had to align themselves to the old ways of getting income, and it was hard as they had already antagonised many advertisers.
Micheni said they tried to build new income streams from digital platforms, but it became unbearable with the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic.
"You know, building a digital platform to be able to get numbers to get adverts, you need to invest in a lot of content," he said.
"We closed down when the pandemic hit, and by time the country resumed normalcy, we were at zero again and had to start afresh."
Micheni said that when devolved governments came in, social media had also begun to grow in the country, and most county administrations received criticism from residents on digital space about development and governance.
"So for most of these regional papers to get adverts, they had to be mouthpieces of the administrations to counter the social media wave. If you don't align, you never got business," he said.
Micheni said the procurement law that stipulates that county governments advertise specific things in two national papers is also another hurdle for regional papers.
"The law is very ridiculous. Why would a county government advertise in national papers, while we have some regional papers that are even more popular in specific regions than these national papers?" he asked.
He said there should be a requirement that you also advertise in regional papers.
"Nobody has bothered to push a law to that effect, so that you grow your own media houses and share information with locals," he said.
He said once regional papers start making money from people who are not directly interested, the censorship goes automatically.
On government taxes, he urged the government to look at VAT as printing is very expensive.
"Eighty percent of the revenue goes to printing, 10 per cent is used to pay workers for content and 10 per cent is like profit," Micheni said.
"If the government can subsidise the tax on printing, then it will create employment for so many people."
Micheni said the government should give media houses at least a 10-year grace period on income tax, which will be a big relief to small media houses.
SHILLING, GAA WOES
Simon Kobia, who owns the Eastern Newspaper that is in seven counties and two in the Northern Rift Valley, has also seen better days.
The newspaper started in 2018 in two counties.
Kobia said that in 2020, when Covid-19 restrictions were put in place, advertising was viewed as a luxury, and most companies cut spending on the revenue stream relied on by many media houses.
Kobia said there are many newspaper readers who like reading hard copies of newspapers.
"Others keep them in bookshelves in libraries for easier reference, without incurring the cost since hard newspaper copies can be kept for many years," he said.
Kobia said most people in the rural areas are not digitally literate and prefer newspapers as opposed to buying a smartphone and buying bundles as there is no free Internet in the country.
He said penetration of online media in the area of coverage is less than 10 per cent.
Kobia said 16 per cent value-added tax (VAT) on every advert and another 30 per cent on income tax at the end of the year is too much tax for many media houses to bear.
Kobia said the continuous drop of the Kenya shilling compared to the US dollar is a big challenge as most newsprint materials, including paper, are imported using US dollars.
He urged the state to look into media grievances as the role of the media has not been taken seriously by previous regimes.
He said for instance, the decision by the government to start an advertising agency that started printing My Gov newspaper and dictated that all adverts must be put there was a way to kill the media by the previous regime.
"The publication by the government ensured all the revenue that was supposed to go to the private sector remained in the government," he said.
He said a law to safeguard the media needs to be put in place.
"A few years ago, the government of Kenya enacted a law that allowed those people dealing with agricultural commodities to be exempted from tax," Kobia said.
"This has contributed greatly to food security. This can also be done to the media. Without that, the media will continue struggling."
He said if the media had unity, it could save itself from capture. The government would listen and lower the cost of production.
Kobia said media houses which cover the same area could merge to lower the cost of production and negotiate business together.
All the debts will be cleared. The Media Owners Association had held a meeting with head of Public Service and discussed the debts, and it was agreed all arrears will be settled
DEBT PROMISE
Information CS Eliud Owalo said the government is concerned about media houses being entangled in debt, leading to financial constraints.
He said the debts owed by the government, especially by the Government Advertising Agency, will be cleared as soon as possible to ease financial struggles.
Owalo made the remarks in Mombasa on December 2, during the sixth Editors Guild Convection, which was attended by delegates from East Africa.
"All the debts will be cleared. The Media Owners Association had held a meeting with head of Public Service and discussed the debts, and it was agreed all arrears will be settled," Owalo said.
He empathised with the economic challenges faced by media practitioners in the country.
"We feel what some are going through but despite the financial difficulties, your contributions are important in shaping the nation's development. And despite the challenges, there is hope," Owalo said.