Nation Media Fires Managing Editor as Mass Layoff Begins

A Kenyan reading the Daily Nation newspaper
A Kenyan reading the Daily Nation newspaper
File

The Nation Media Group on July 2, 2020, commenced its plan of laying off what has been speculated to be over 500 staff members with senior editorial staff being the first on the chopping board. 

Multiple sources revealed to Kenyans.co.ke that among those let go include division managers and senior journalists. 

Business Daily Managing Editor Ng’ang’a Mbugua and Daily Nation News Editor Francis Wanyonyi Wambilianga are among the seniormost staffers said to have been let go. 

Business Daily Managing Editor Ng’ang’a Mbugua 
Outgoing Business Daily Managing Editor Ng’ang’a Mbugua 
File

Several other senior staffers who have so far become the casualties of the ongoing redundancy exercise that spans across the mainstream media are Business Daily and Daily Nation journalists.

More reorganisation at NMG is expected in the newspaper division as the company shifts its focus to digital. 

Highly-placed sourced inform Kenyans.co.ke that more staffers in the company's television broadcasting division, NTV, are set to be let go from Friday, July 3. 

Ng’ang’a Mbugua was appointed managing editor of Business Daily in January 2019 after working at Daily Nation. 

The restructuring is viewed by analysts as a make-or-break moment for the company following a significaant reduction in traditional revenue streams in the decades-old advertisement-led business model. 

Nation Media Group Managing Editor, Digital, Churchill Otieno, is expected to be instrumental in the reorganisation of the newsroom in NMG's new business model. 

"Advertising can no longer fund journalism sufficiently. There is a lot of creativity going on in our mainstream media houses to reimagine the business models in order to find clean money that can fund journalism," Churchill Otieno stated in a past interview. 

Nation Media Group CEO Stephen Gitagama.
Nation Media Group CEO Stephen Gitagama.
Daily Nation