The Bitch is Back!

Look, I would prefer not having to nag people, but sometimes it's the only thing that works!

By way of explanation, I think I've mentioned how much of a jolt of positive energy I got from attending the recent Pan African Media Conference here in Nairobi. I've been working here almost two years now, but until lately, it felt like I was tilting at windmills. There's only so much "skinnin' and grinnin' " you can do to get people to buy into your game plan, and then you start thinking, what's the point???

While I take a great deal of credit for coming into an overwhelmingly male newsroom culture and getting editors and managers to take me AND my opinions seriously, it really seemed like nothing was gonna pierce the obsessional approach to covering political wrangling and corruption. And all I was trying to say is that readers care about other stuff, too. Like, er, um, THEIR HEALTH.

Even the handful of fairly significant successes I'd achieved weren't enough to stop burnout, until the conference. Being in an atmosphere where major media managers were acknowledging the problems, and making tangible commitments to change, really lifted my spirits. But apparently not enough for me to rattle off an all-staff email Wednesday morning that my mother would have concluded was quite patently "nice-nasty."

Don't worry--I led with praise. I raved about three recent stories which I think did a great job of diffusing all the oppressive political coverage. One was about dangerous trans fatty acids contained in the cheap cooking oils used to cook Kenyan fast foods, another was about a ballet program for girls in the Mathare slum, and the third was about a program that teaches children about the damage caused by political corruption. I gave each reporter major props for their work--and then I blasted editors for not thinking to put stories like this on the front page. Frankly, I'm sick of waking up every morning and seeing the same five politicians staring out at me, yammering about the same issues that they have no intention of doing anything about. I said it would be a major gift to wake up one morning and see something else that matters to readers on the front page.

Now, I can't definitively prove that today's Page 1 Daily Nation story, about the unhealthy eating and lifestyles of Kenyan children, was a result of my hormonal rant, and I haven't been in the office today to nail that down. Still, I get the sneaking suspicion that some of the guys in Nation Centre aren't entirely convinced that I won't walk into a morning news meeting one day, take off my earrings and start slapping everybody sitting around the conference table if they don't start doing what I say, dammit! Occasional hot flashes often lend a woman like me an aura of ominous gravity. They probably read my email and decided it was a quick way to throw a sister a bone.

Hey, whatever works! "The bitch, the bitch, the bitch is back, Stone cold sober as a matter of fact! I'm a bitch, I'm a bitch, and I'm better than you. It's the way that I move, the things that I do, whoa, whoa!"