Sex scandal rocks the “People Daily”

So grave is the matter that the question now is whether or not the senior manager at the center of the scandal that has rocked Kenya’s third-largest national newspaper should resign.

Beware: are you a parent? Is your daughter taking journalism, this is where not to apply for internship!

IT is with much burden on our very conscience that we decide to publish this story, it is a story about a media house most of us respected and still hold in total respect, in terms of exclusive story but one which priorities needs to be put into sharp focus so as to develop the raw talent full in the Newsroom.

From the onset, let us note that all reputable journalists in this country at one time sat in the desks of the People Daily - arguably Kenya's third best Newspaper after the Nation and Standard.

Mention Abunuwas.com favorites, Muriithi Mutiga (Business Daily), James Wokabi (Capital FM), or renowned figures like Francis Openda (Standard/Nairobi Star), Oyunga Pala (Nation), Chris Ojow(Nation), Noor (Standard), Cyrus Ombati (Standard), Dennis Itumbi (Baraka FM), Olive Munyi (Nation) and of course the media big names, Mwenda Njoka, John Kimani, Ondido Ayieko,Francis Luchivya, Johnson Muthumbi, David Kimondo, and Lucianne Limo (Standard) and among many others, they all started their careers at the People Daily desks, but something went wrong then and persists today and that’s our story, a story we have held back for too long hoping things would change but it is now time to open up the newsroom for the world to see - a painful decision, we must note, for some key heads within abunuwasi.com, actually went through the baptism from almost hopeless journalists into readable writers in the very walls of the newsrooms of the People Daily.

We cannot tell the whole story in one page but we will touch on the core issues and leave the rest to the management of the People Daily to sort.

We may sound frivolous to some, something that we experienced when we first reported the Nation Media Group (NMG) scandal, but we will have told the story the rest is up to personal conscience. Our story at the end of the day is laden with pure facts and we can repeat them in a court of law with evidence that we took time to obtain before going on to publish this article.

DO AWAY WITH THIS MANAGERS!

Our first installment will revolve around two senior managers - Mugo Theuri and Mwangi Chege.

MWANGI CHEGE - GROUP DEPUTY MANAGING EDITOR

We intend to do a three part installment so we will touch on one case facing the man, he is a man of repute, though he can't pen a credible news story within a span of 24 hours, given a week he can come up with a serious story as evidenced by the archives of the weekly paper (before it turned daily- he had major exclusives)

However the man, who owns a school in the outskirts of the city, has inherent weaknesses below his waist; though he does hunt many a prey; those he focuses and zeroes on - he gets with the artistic delivery of a vulture.

A case in point for this article is one former Daystar University student who joined the paper as an intern in early 2004. Shortly the girl was enjoying direct favors from the office of the deputy MD including lunches at the Ambassador hotel across the road from the paper's Union Tower offices.

Three months down the line the girl was pregnant and since abortion was not an option after a research funded by the newsroom under the guise of an investigative story published as a lead story in the paper, the man saved his skin and reputation by marrying the girl as a second wife consequently stalling an ugly situation that was being threatened by the GIRL, who then had to leave the People Daily to a local NGO where she worked as a Public Relations Officer (PRO). Currently,she is a PRO of a different company whose details we will not publish for the sake of her professional growth.

Mwangi Chege, is also the man charged with the responsibility of recruiting interns into the newspaper - the ratio of female interns to male one is 1:9 in favour of lady interns - though a written aptitude test is the standard qualification for internship, "those who look beautiful and are ready to do more than scribbling notebooks with pens get the job" a senior personnel in the paper told abunuwasi.com in an informal chat.

So as to prove the claims, we set up a journalism student in a city college only one and half months ago, the "student" applied for the internship, was never granted a job. The next day we worked a genius from her wardrobe and gave her instructions to go directly and ask for Chege, the conversation thereof which we will be uploading in our audio section confirm our suspicions.

Our student got the attachment for the sake of anonymity we will not indicate if she got the attachment or not, and if she reported for duty.

The result of the style used by Chege is that the newsroom is heavily feminine - however we must note that the expectant female journalists in the newsroom right now are not the people we are talking about some of them are legally married outside the newsroom and have a legal right to get pregnant and others have taken personal decisions which are natural and we insist those are not the people we are referring to in this article!!!

MUGO THEURI - GROUP MANAGING EDITOR

From the onset lets pat the man for his brilliance or lack of it, he managed to perform a coup to rise to the position he currently holds on the way he even "changed ownership of the sole remaining newsroom company vehicle that now he operates as his own.

His story with the diminutive a former People Daily reporter began when the said reporter arrived for internship. After a series of frustrations from the news desk which when manned by the duo of Peter Leftie, Francis Mureithi, Mukalo Kwayera, Michael Kamau and Eric Nyakagwa who entertains no literal gibberish, kept killing her stories telling her to "write stories worth the print" she sought help from the MD.

Sensing her desperation to get on print, Theuri did what he does best, cajoled and blackmailed the innocent intern and in a while she was pregnant.

She refused to go for an abortion and gave birth at first the MD did not know what to do so she recommended her for employment to the shock of the news desk.

She was, however, employed but she did not keep her cool insisting she would stand on the rooftop and expose Theuri. The man promptly sacked her and withdrew child support.

Theuri sourced a job for her and she is currently in a firm abunuwais.com cannot reveal for her own professional sake. Lady employees and interns interviewed for this article all concurred, “the man makes his moves fast and discreet and even when he is doing his supervisory roles he does not waste a chance to touch and hold."

To test the man, we used a former employee of the People Daily, who managed to squeeze a lunch out of the man and after lunch Theuri could not hold himself he "literally pleaded" for an outing to a "press cocktail " scheduled for that evening, unfortunately the lady we used for this assignment did not know how to handle our pocket recorder and so we did not get the voice clearly - our technicians are working on the unclear soundbites and we will report on them as soon as we can.

Theuri has never been credited with a worthy editorial and only appears on the scene during the morning meetings where he is dwarfed by the talent and sage of the likes of Peter Leftie, Francis Mureithi, Eric Nyakagwa and the more flamboyant Michael Kamau.

Theuri's biggest threat has been Mukalo Kwayera - the man who holds the Special Projects desk, he makes sure none of his projects goes through; fortunately for him (Mukalo) he has the backing of Ivy Matiba- the proprietor of the newspaper who is blinded about the on goings at the 5th floor newsroom.