The axe has fallen on two top editors at The Standard Media Group as the exercise to send home over 300 employees start.
An independent Transformation Team recommended the sacking of seasoned journalists Kipkoech Tanui and Kizito Namulanda.
Tanui was the Head of News, a role that put him on top of the company’s entire news-gathering operation.
Namulanda on the other hand was Intake editor.
The two were part of nine editors running the company’s Super Desk. The team is headed by the Group Editor-in-Chief Ochieng’ Rapuro.
Tanui deputised Rapuro and according to sources, he eyed this position but his rise has since been trimmed.
Exit of Tanui and Namulanda who were some of the highly paid editors at the Kenya’s oldest media house marks the start of a process to weed out editors and managers with big salaries not matching their output.
“Sending home Tanui tells you the new management means business. That guy was an inside man of the company major shareholders” a source said.
Tanui who joined the Standard in 2001 boasts of about 30 years’ experience in newsroom business, of which, 23 years he was at the senior management level.
He has been Bureau Chief, News Editor, Associate Editor, Daily Managing Editor, Group Executive Editor, Deputy Editorial Director and Head of News he held until last month.
Namulanda joined the company as news editor in August 2015 from Mwananchi Communications Limited in Dar es Salaam Tanzania.
Since last week the management effecting recommendations of the Transformation Team has been issuing dismissal letters to staff who were sent on compulsory leave end of July.
KTN reporter David Muthoka and Standard newspaper photographer Denish Ochieng are some of the staff who have revealed they left the company.
Muthoka had worked there for 27 months while Ochieng 10 years.
In mid-August Esther Mwende Macharia left Radio Maisha for Cape Media owned Radio 47.
