Panic has gripped the Nation Media Group following the announcement on Monday morning that the media company intends to lay off up to half of journalists in its newsroom.
The bombshell was dropped during a full editorial meeting, which was oddly addressed by only Group Editorial Director Joe Ageyo and Head of Human Resources (HR) Jane Muiruri.
Sources at the gloomy meeting at Nation Center, Nairobi told Swala Nyeti that Ageyo and Muiruri said NMG would render jobless those who cannot fit into its new converged setup.
Among those facing an abrupt end to their careers at the Aga Khan majority-owned firm are revise editors, magazine editors, reporters, online videos producers and correspondents.
NMG Chief Executive Officer Stephen Gitagama, who usually delivers such bad news, did not address the meeting with redundancy letters to be issued out from June 26 to July 3, 2023.
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The decision to significantly trim the NMG payroll, according to our Nation Center sources, has been necessitated by reduced newspaper sales and thinning revenues in the digital era.
Ageyo and Muiruri are reported to have informed the punch-drunk newsroom that the mass retrenchment has been occasioned by the need to fortify NMG convergence and quality.
Under the centralized newsroom strategy, according to the NMG bosses, the company’s platforms across board will only publish or air stories commissioned from Nation Center.
They argue that this will ensure quality, with regional editors who manage correspondents set to pitch stories with Daily Nation News Editor Allan Olingo and his NTV colleague Ben Kitili.
Earnings by NMG correspondents, who are already grappling with reduced earnings per story published, are also expected to affected negatively in the massive newsroom layoffs.
This comes even as many editors and reporters have been complaining of a burnout owing to the pressure experienced in the already lean newsroom after preceding redundancies.
Muiruri told the tense meeting the firm would arrange free professional counseling services to assist those affected to deal with the dreaded letters kicking them into unemployment.
According to an email sent to all staff members titled “Employee Assistance Programme”, NMG will employ the services of Build and Restore Counselling Services for the exercise.
The last time NMG declared such an expected huge number of redundancies was in July 2020 at the height of the Covid-19 when the company blamed the adverse effects of the pandemic on the media business and even effected salary cuts.
