Ownership stories of print media go back more than a century

Daily Nation

The newspaper was founded by Prince Karim, the Aga Khan IV, in 1959. Its predecessor, a Kiswahili weekly called Taifa, had been founded by Michael Curtis and Charles Hayes. It was transformed into today’s Taifa Leo in 1960.

The English edition was first published on October 3, 1960, and has remained the most popular daily on Kenyan newsstands.

Today, the Nation Media Group runs 11 newspapers in the East Africa. Its most recent paper, Nairobi News, hit the streets last week on November 20.

Taifa Leo
Taifa Leo is the only daily published in Kiswahili in Kenya. It is the oldest publication in the Nation Media Group stable. Its name literally translates to “the nation today”.

The Standard

The Standard’s predecessor, the African Standard, was founded in 1902 by Parsee migrant Alibhai Mulla Jeevanjee. Jeevanjee then sold the paper to British businessmen in 1905.

Its new owners, Mayer and Anderson, renamed it the East African Standard, and then moved its headquarters from Mombasa to Nairobi in 1910.

The paper was bought by the Lonrho Group in 1963. Its name changed to The Standard in 1977. It was later reverted to East African Standard. The paper was sold to local investors in 1995 and changed back to The Standard in 2004.

At one time, The Standard Group published Baraza, a Kiswahili paper.

The Star

This daily paper was launched in 2007 as the Nairobi Star by Radio Africa. The Star first circulated exclusively in Nairobi, and it initially didn’t have weekend editions. It has now expanded and it is distributed to other parts of the country.

The People

The People was first a weekly publication owned by opposition politician Kenneth Matiba. It became a daily in 1998.

The People was termed as the voice of the opposition. It carried stories that the other newspapers did not to publish.

This business model, coupled with other political power fights, dragged the paper through the law courts with long libel cases.

The Matiba family has since sold it to MediaMax, a company associated with President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Kenya Times

Kenya Times was founded by the ruling Kenya African National Union (KANU) in 1983. It was originally called Nairobi Times when it was founded in 1977 by Hillary Ng’weno as a quality weekend afternoon paper. It rebranded as Kenya Times after KANU bought it.

In 1988, Robert Maxwell, the British publisher of The Mirror, invested in a 45 per cent stake in the paper.

It subsequently became the first full-colour newspaper and its popularity rose between 1988 and 1992.

It had a sister Kiswahili paper, Kenya Leo. The publications were stopped in 2010.

Weekly Review

Hillary Ng’weno’s more famous magazine was The Weekly Review. He founded the political news journal in 1975. It was the most visible brand in his publishing company that included other periodicals such as The Industry Review, The Financial Review, and Rainbow.

The paper folded in 1999 due to financial problems.

Nairobi Law Monthly

This monthly magazine was founded by Gitobu Imanyara in 1987. It formed the core of his attacks on the Moi government, covering issues of governance and abuse of the law.

The publication of Nairobi Law Monthly was also the reason Imanyara was arrested and detained three times between 1987 and 1991.

Imanyara was awarded the International Editor of the Year Award and the World Association of Newspaper’s Golden Pen of Freedom Award for his work.

The publication is now owned by Abdullahi Ahmednasir, a former Law Society of Kenya chairman and a member of the Judicial Service Commission.

Kenya Gazette

The Kenya Gazette is the official government publication. It is published weekly and contains important information on laws, appointments, and notices.

Copies of the Kenya Gazette dating as far back as 1906 are available online on www.Kenyalaw.org.