READERS: If you’re somebody, you don’t need a title

I refer to the Public Editor’s Notebook article, “Why does ‘Nation’ refer to Ruto as ‘Dr’ but Odinga as ‘Mr’?” (Daily Nation, March 21, 2019).

When we use titles in the media — or anywhere else — we need to ask two questions: What does the use of the title attempt to achieve? When a title is placed before a name, what is it supposed to achieve? Let’s deal with the first question.

A name is used primarily to identify a person so that there is no ambiguity in the readers’ minds as to the individual being referred to.

This is the reason why most people have more than one name since the more names one has the lower the probability there would be another person sharing the same names.

It’s precisely for this reason that when, for example, we speak of a Mary Spencer, we may wish to clarify that she happens to be the vice-president of a certain NGO, to set her apart from any other Mary Spencer in the universe.

On the second question, it’s evident it’s hubris on the part of the person, or servility on the part of the user, that motivates the use of the title before somebody’s name.

Because the use of a title, for instance, Dr, Prof, Mr, Ms, President, Deputy President, et cetera, remains constant for a given person.

And yet the contexts in which titles are used are ever evolving and rarely have anything to do with the title — which, in many situations, is superfluous to the context.

Who in Kenya does not, for example, know that Raila Odinga or Uhuru Kenyatta are men? Therefore, placing “Mr” in front of their names is, to say the least, an irrelevance.

It does not add any new information to readers because those who may not be aware of their gender are unlikely to be newspaper readers anyway.

If you look at the answers to the two questions, you will notice there is no logical intersection between them.

The only conclusion is that it’s useless to put a title before a name. And I’m referring to any title, even for medical doctors, presidents, Cabinet secretaries, and “their excellencies”.

So ridiculous has the use of titles become that even noble professions like accountancy and engineering are falling over themselves to get their members have titles in front of their names.

If you add the concept of humility and the principle of equality and freedom from discrimination (Article 27 of the Constitution), the use or non-use of titles becomes a no-brainer.

The media in more advanced countries are ahead of us. They’re not infatuated with the use of titles as we are.

Those who crave titles before their names do not seem to understand that the acquisition of knowledge is embedded in service to humanity with humility — not hubris.

The Albert Einsteins and Nelson Mandelas of this world did not need titles. And will never need them to secure their niche in this world.

NTV editors gone to sleep

I was watching NTV This Morning (April 2) and a caption appeared at bottom of the screen saying “11 seating and ex officers arrested”!

Why would the word “seating” be allowed to pass without being spotted? What do you think is the problem? Are we not witnessing serious dereliction of duty by NMG gatekeepers?

NMG editors have largely gone to sleep and action needs to be taken against them. This is not an isolated incident.