Pulse sucks

I always read the Nation, I cant stand the Standard. I dont like its colour scheme, the way the paper feels and the font is not easy to read. I believe most people feel the same wa since whenever I walk up to a newspaper vendor and ask for a gazeti they always give me a Nation and if they do not have one respond, 'Tumebaki na Standard'. But the main reason I do not like Standard is that they try to be too sensational, they sometimes have this screaming, scandulous headline which is not related to the actual story. They will do a headline like X revealed and y exposed but when you read the story there is really nothing new, they just go through the same details which have been in the public domain for a while. I also dont find them reliable. When you make a statement and justify it as having come from "sources close to the State house" or "industry experts" I get skeptical. I am left wondering what does close mean? A cleaner? A guy who went to primo with the president? the Vice president?

There must be a difference between what appears in a newspaper and a discussion between two laymen in a number 2 bus to Kawangware. They can change their colour scheme all they want or renames their magazines but until they change their content they will remain miles behind Nation and not see my 35 bop. However, I do not mean to say that Nation is good its just the lesser of the two evils. In my mind, reporters are nearly as unreliable as politicians. Infact the two groups feed from the same trough, our ignorance and interest in politics.

The first time I read (or attempted to read) Pulse was towards the end of 2004. I was in Nandi Hills on a nice sunny Friday morning taking a drive back to Nairobi. There were four us in the car and we a had a Nation and Standard. The papers were split up and I ended up with the Pulse which I thought would be a nice way to kill time until we got to Kericho. After appreciating the good looking chik on the cover I turned to the first page. The lead story tried to compare the rivalry between East African musicians and the rivalry between the East and West coast rappers in the 90's. I considered it silly so I turned to the next page which also did not interest me, so I turned to the third which I think had some photos. I went through every page of the darn thing and did not find a single article worth reading. I concluded that Pulse is targeted at guys aged between 16 and 22, and those whose interest in the Kenyan music extends beyond the music. i.e. those interested in who has beef with who, who has been spotted with who e.t.c Since I do not fit into that demographic then I cannot find it readable.

Since I had nothing better to do today I checked out an article from the Pulse on the web. I dont know too much about reporting on concerts or shows but I am sure it does not involve dissing innocent people. In this piece (calling it an article would be raising it to a position it does not deserve) the writer has implied Tanzania is a banana republic,implied that some Kenyan chiks got to some mischief with those two Armenians (wish these matter would just die),dissed Bebe Cool,also dissed someone called Feroze and Mwisho, reduced an association between Mwisho and Ray C to an affair, implied a gal called Carol has issues with Tanzanians, implied Kenyans are petty thieves, suggested that Pinye is a sadist and indicated he is an expert in either Nonini's or Akon's sex life. He has also started a rumour that Akon is coming to Kenya.

I may be wrong but there is very little reporting here. He is not giving a true and fair account of events which in my mind is what reporting should be.