Let’s Be Honest Larry madowo, You Taking Shots at Bloggers Was More of an Ego Issue Than Anything Else. You Just Can’t Stand the Fact You’re Now Playing the Same Level with a 13 Year Old Sitting at home With No Clothes On

I had vowed to not dignify Larry Madowo with a response to his fang-baring attack on the Blogging industry-and bloggers-yesterday but f*ck it; I couldn’t suppress the urge to get some things off my chest. I felt I needed to second my colleague Chweya who penned this yesterday:MADOWO

Larry Madowo besides hosting TV and trotting the globe to take selfies writes some ka-column in the Daily Nation to rant about stuff we already ranted about a week ago.

And, because no one feels sweeter than King Larry, he takes time to, very occasionally, throw jabs all over the place…and, sometimes, the jabs are anything but savory.

Yesterday Larry threw a couple punches at bloggers and, in the heat of the moment, got so carried away that he ultimately reduced us to some piece of trash-spewers, garbage and utter rubbish.

Ouch.

Larry glorified the mainstream media industry and severely trashed the Blogging industry starting with yours truly! But was it really justified? First of all the hullabaloo emanated from a post he shared on his facebook page which if you take time to check, it is verified. Last time I checked, a verified page on facebook goes ahead to show that it is authentic and the information that’s being dispersed from it is also equally authentic.

Now for Larry, a renowned Journalist to use the same platform to carry out a social experiment, that’s outright unprofessional. Not only bloggers but also the greater masses rely on social media pages for information as gone are the days people had to call press conferences to churn out information to the public. Even the government uses its social media pages to share information and sensitive information for that matter. How then can you go ahead to blame us for picking up what you posted? That is a definitely a credible source if you ask me.

Secondly, these jabs are coming from the same man who, after hosting Hon. Alfred Keter and Hon. Sonia Birdi, did such a tremendously horrible job interviewing them they ended up looking better than him…Never mind they had, earlier that day, invaded a weighbridge to harass a bunch of lowly officials.

Larry, aided by his tempestuous attitude and loquacious mouth, bungled up the interview so much, we ended up feeling pity for the Honorable criminals he was hosting.

Lord knows what a historically horrible job he’d have done were he the one tasked with handling that epic Bruce Jenner interview.

But, really for every meticulous Diane Sawyer there will be a shoddy Larry Madowo.

This man attacking Ghafla-and bloggers at large-is the same man who writes for a newspaper that SHAMELESSLY reported that Moi had met Uhuru and Ruto secretly when, infact, NOTHING like that happened.

This blog-loathing scribe is the same man who writes for a newspaper that, when Uhuru visited Kisumu a week ago, came up with the headline “Uhuru and Raila Share The Stage In Kisumu”. Just to sell newspaper copies. Click bait galore is how I see it and I bet you’re just struggling to keep up. And if I might remind you, your media house had Zuqka before Ghafla entered the game taking you out of business. The same media house went ahead to start Nairobi News which was entirely dependent on creating the same level of sensationalism as Ghafla but so far nothing!

This Madowo man is the same fellow who writes for a newspaper that was unethical enough to publish the photo of a bruised and horribly bloodied woman after the Westgate Attack on the Sunday Nation front page. Not only that, they went ahead to do such a pathetic job on the Garissa attacks which again had its eye on the price- getting clicks rather than getting the gist of the story.

And now this same man wants to coach us what responsible journalism is?? please! Sit down and take a selfie son.

For how long have you been in the industry again?? 3 minutes!?

And allow me to remind you; Ghafla is a BLOG. An urban blog. Not some mainstream National newspaper religiously read by some carrot farmers in Karachuonyo.

And thus, You CANNOT and WILL NOT police us. No, you can’t!

Oh, and then I heard that you and Jeff Koinange (a man I deeply revere) made a bet on who would interview Barrack Obama first. And I immediately put my money on the Emmy Award-winning Jeff Koinange. Not because he is the one that CAN actually do it…But the one that SHOULD actually do it. Assuming it’s even possible.

I mean, what’s your track record again?? Vera Sidika? Huddah? Davido? Puh-leeeeze.

Let’s face it, your hugely-popular show THE TREND is really the Ghafla version of TV. It’s a ratchet tabloid show that has, for years now, survived on sensationalism, low brow celebrity guests, grainy cat videos, Hollywood worship and some other mundane stuff.

And yet, we haven’t ever penned a piece castigating the show. It’s mediocrity notwithstanding.

You can take shots at other blogs (they rightfully deserve to be taken shots at) but NOT at Ghafla…a website that has, for almost half a decade now, not just entertained but also dutifully informed millions of Kenyans on a daily-infect-hourly basis. And talking of facts, Ghafla has an average of 2.6 million unique visitors and not what you blatantly shared with your audience so get your facts right first before you start name shaming others.

While we are not denying that some of our headlines can be, as you so put it, “deliberately vague”, we must also let you know that BEFORE we publish ANY story we MUST FIRST call the protagonist.

But almost all the phone calls Ghafla has ever made to you were reduced to a childish display of hostility and conceitedness and vain emotionalism.

And on that note, given that you are NOT Jennifer Lopez, we gave up calling you.

Ghafla is a company that employs close to-if not-20 young, industrious Kenyans and you are therefore quite out of order the moment you chose to trivialize and pooh-pooh the concerted efforts of such a team, it’s shortcomings notwithstanding.

And did you just mention that TV is still going to survive the beckoning online revolution? I think not and let me portray this by sharing this important research that was recently released by Google in a training they recently held:

As you can clearly see, your industry is slowly being overtaken by the internet and it’s only a matter of time before your ignorance ass is phased out. As we speak now, agencies have started evaluating how they’re spending their budgets and you can be lest assured they’re heading our way and this is why;

I will take a key scenario in the states. In 1990, when a news story broke, you found out about it from a handful of venues: Three major TV news channels, your single local newspaper, the “newspaper of record” (nytimes), or one of maybe five radio stations. Whatever revenue there was to have was very focused and centralized.

Contrast to 2011, when a quick search on Google news shows 4,038 sources reporting on gay marriage in New York. From about seven sources to four thousand.

If you added up all of the revenue from those 4,000 sources, you don’t think they’d meet or exceed the revenue from your seven sources in 1990?

The money is out there and being earned, but it’s not in one place. Revenue used to look like lakes: “rivers” of income streaming into a few big repositories.

Now it looks like puddles: lots of little pockets and many advertisers and companies are looking forward to rip off from these. 2,3 or even 5 years down the line, it will be impossible to sustain your industry so if you’ll just have to result to the little cocoon you came from.

As I have established, instead of taking time to learn and understand the online game, you have instead opted to turn a blind eye and instead expose your blatant ignorance for the world to see. Change is coming and change is inevitable so your better shape up or leave the space.

Or is your ego just too big to stomach everything? I clearly understand though, it’s sad to realize you’re on a level field with a 13 year old sitting at home with no clothes on.