On this, The Standard scooped top points, too. It should be more about how someone lived versus the fact that they died.
The Standard wittily justified the lack of it: “She never revealed her age, saying it’s a privilege women have since men also don’t want to be asked where they were when they arrive home past midnight.”īetween the bookends, a good obit should be a profile – anecdotes that celebrate the person’s life – not a dry biography. On the deceased’s age, Business Daily and Star said nothing. The Standard offered more information: she battled cancer for years. On cause of death, The Star told us that Manduli died from “undisclosed illness.” If that’s the only thing said on the matter, it typically tells you the writer was too lazy to research. The obit ended with the deceased’ property, namely, a 1,000-acre wheat and maize farm, a health products distribution business, and high-end residences in Nairobi. A journalistic piece can’t survive that start.
But her story can never be exhausted.” Zero information. The writer, Sam Kiplagat, started off with a cliché: “A lot has been said about Orie Rogo Manduli. The Business Daily bungled both bookends. He wrote that Manduli and her first husband, Ondieki (writer didn’t research first name), were “blessed with three daughters: Elizabeth, Allison and Janice.” Ten out of ten points.īut the writer, Allan Kisia, tanked the end. On the other hand, T he Star’s lead said, “Veteran politician and former chairperson of NGO Council Orie Rogo Manduli is dead.” Shorty, tidy, dispassionate. The writer dug up Manduli’s foster son, little known City businessman Gor Semelango, to give a memorable parting quote on how her mother’s no-mediocrity personality raised go-getters. The intro continued: “The feisty rally driver, journalist, politician, activist and teacher who last month hosted family and friends for her birthday party died in her Riverside home as she waited for paramedics to take her to hospital.”Įxcept for the missing number of that last birthday, the story could as well stop. The writer in this well-researched profile will later explain that she was named after a Scottish missionary. The Standard and The Star got the bookends down, but the papers differed in what qualifies for good journalism.ĭavid Odongo’s opening in The Standard was the most pithy and informative.“Ambassador Mary Slessor Orie Rogo Manduli is dead.” There, revelation of Manduli’s little known first names. Everything else falls between these basics. She/he is survived by… is an efficient way of stating who is grieving. Now, the obit is bookended by two basics, who died - name, age, date of death, cause of death (if possible), work, education – and who survived. The Daily Nation’s sister paper, the Business Daily, announced on the same day: “Orie Rogo: Classy lady who took no prisoners.” Two days earlier, The Star simply said, “Orie Rogo Manduli dies in Nairobi.” “Orie Rogo Manduli, Kisumu girl born to kick ass,” The Standard’s eyebrow raising heading said on September 10. Here’s a look at how the Nation, The Standard and The Star wrote Manduli’s obit. It is different from a eulogy, the speech often in praise of the dead and which is typically read publicly at their funeral. The news media’s tribute to Manduli provided a contrast on the yeses and no’s of obituaries.Īn obit, as we cutely call it in the news production sweatshop, is a death announcement and short profile of the deceased, written out journalistically in a newspaper or online. Orie Rogo Manduli, Kenya’s “woman of many firsts” whose signature gele – the Yoruba name for Nigeria’s artfully folded head gear – immortalised her on Kenyan screens and newspapers, died on September 9.
0 kommentar(er)
