As narrated by Raila Odinga’s official photographer Evans Dims via his Facebook account.
“Kenyan artists have a long way to go.
Last week, I accompanied HE Raila Odinga to Juba for an assignment. While on the plane I took some shots of him reading the three major daily newspapers as he always does. He starts with Nation, then The Standard then lastly The Star. It’s always in that order every time he is on a long flight.
So I posted that photo on my Instagram and luckily for The Star, it was a photo of him reading their paper. A photographer friend of mine shared the the photo in a WhatsApp group that had The Star editors. He told me the guys were asking for a soft copy of that photo for a story for the following day.
I sought permission from Comms director and he said it’s fine. I sent the soft copy to The Star editors through my friend. He CCd me in the email he had sent to the star and indicated that should The Star need to use the photo for commercial purposes, they should contact me. I don’t have a problem with The Star using the photo at all for a story.
What I have a problem with is that, even after all that hustle to get the soft copy, when they finally published the story with the photo the following day, they didn’t even give credit! The Star pays Ksh. 1,000 (Yeah) for front page and Ksh. 500 for inside pages! It doesn’t matter if it’s exclusive.
Now in a perfect contrast, few days later, JEUNE AFRIQUE, a French-language pan African weekly newspaper sent me an email asking for permission to use a photo I took last year when RAO visited Moi.
We had a long back and forth with the photo editor for JEUNE AFRIQUE on mail. She sent me their rates and asked if I was ok with them. Here are the rates:
Stamp: €80
1/8 of page: €100
1/4 of page: €120
1/2 Of page: €150
3/4 of Page: €180
Pp: €200
And on top of that, they still gave credit, and sent me a soft copy of the publication as she promised. Now imagine Kenyan Media showed even half the appreciation to our artists the way JEUNE AFRIQUE did?
What does JEUNE AFRIQUE have that The Star doesn’t? One would ask. JEUNE AFRIQUE has professionals, I don’t know about The Star.”
