Royal Media Services (RMS)-owned Citizen Digital landed itself in trouble following the publication of a story on Samanthah Maina who contested the Kileleshwa MCA seat in the 2017 General Election.
After Maina took to Twitter earlier this week to share the story of her campaign and the depression she experienced in the months that followed her eventual loss, an article was published by Citizen under the title 'I almost committed suicide: Story of Samanthah Maina who lost MCA Election'.
Ms Maina was, however, not impressed by the story as she accused Citizen of misrepresenting her story and further demanded that the article be withdrawn.
"@CitizenTVKenya Retract the story. It’s a misrepresentation of what I shared," Maina wrote.
A look at the initial thread posted by Maina reveals that while she laid bare her battle with depression following the loss, she did not mention contemplating suicide as Citizen alleged.
[caption caption="Samanthah Maina on the campaign trail in 2017"]
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She was fronted as a candidate by Ukweli Party, the outfit led by activist Boniface Mwangi who also unsuccessfully ran for the Starehe Parliamentary seat in the 2017 Election.
Samanthah took third place, and in her thread, revealed that she had no regrets for throwing her hat in the ring.
She continued to explain, however, that the campaign left her feeling drained and depleted both emotionally and financially.
"Joblessness robs you of dignity, it really does. Friends weed themselves out, either by you pushing them away or sometimes they don't know how to be a friend to an ex-candidate, how do they support you?
"Who prepares us and those who truly want to be around us how to support a political 'failure'? I remember feeling so alone even when I was among people. I stopped going out, stayed at home, ignored calls because I would legit have a panic attack when someone called," she wrote.
[caption caption="A 2017 election poster for Samanthah Maina"]
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