County News
Daily Nation refers to Garissa University College as “Terror College”
NAIROBI—Kenya’s DAILY NATION has came under intense criticism on Wednesday after it published a report reffering to Garissa University as a “Terror Attack College.”
The college re-opened in January after a terror attack on 2nd April last year that left 147 people dead including 142 students.
The headline did not sit well with Kenyans who asked the DAILY NATION to apologise for the headline which appeared on the 8th page of the print version on Wednesday, saying it was scaring away potential students who would want to study at the institution which is a consituent college of Moi University.
The ill-placed headlined was of particular concern to the people of Nothern Kenya who accused the paper of malice and driving anti-Somali agenda in a bid to bring down the only university in the region. Immedietely after the backlash on Social Media, the online version of the story was changed to read: “Garissa University to admit 710 students a year after terror attack.”
Daily Nation’s public editor Peter Mwaura admitted the headline was ill-placed and in bad taste, saying the editors that put together the headline were not fair, truthful, and believable. In his weekly article that appear on the Friday publication, Mwaura did not defend Nation editors this time round and instead castigated them for misleading readers with catchy headlines that renders the story counter-productive.
“While the “terror attack college” appellation is not technically inaccurate, it is prejudicial and unfair. It identifies, classifies, and distinguishes Garissa from all others as the “terror attack college”. The description strikes fear among potential students.
Would the editor have employed the same appellation if the story was about other institutions or places also attacked by terrorists? Would the editor have nicknamed Westgate the “terror attack shopping mall”? Gikomba as the “terror attack market”? Or Mpeketoni as the “terror attack town”? Highly unlikely.
So, what is the problem? Prejudice? Mindset? It is probably more the case of an editor who, in striving for effect, forgot truthfulness, fairness, and balance. The headline renders the story counter-productive,” Mwaura said while responding to a reader who called him two days earlier to complain about the headline.
But Nation Media Group’s alleged anti Somali campaign did not start with the Wenesday’s ill-placed headline. In a feature article that was published on June 28, 1995 on the arrival of Scandanavian doctors at Garissa District Hospital for a medical camp, the Nation’s describtion of Garissa was not in good taste. The story was penned by Cherop Wilson.
The page where inaccurate information of Garissa was published on June 28, 1995. PHOTO/ Abdikadir Okash
“Garissa District Hospital, who want to go there? It is hot (upto 50 degrees centrigrade), hostile, remote, a large population of Somali refugees, water, electricity and security problems,” the story with the headline “Doctors with Big Heart” started with the first paragraph.
