The New York Times has transferred Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura, the journalist who received a lot of flak over the coverage of the January 15 terrorist attack at dusitD2 in Nairobi’s Riverside area. De Freytas-Tamura is now a correspondent based in London, where she covers an eclectic beat ranging from politics to social issues spanning Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
There is no mention that the journalist, who is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s degree in financial journalism from City University in London and who speaks Japanese, French, Spanish and Portuguese was destined to become the New York Times East African Bureau Chief before the paper’s online and offline coverage of the terror attack boomeranged on her face.
Many Kenyans were infuriated with a huge chunk of them reading racism in the whole affair. Most of the ire was directed at de Freytas-Tamura even as she protested that she did not make the call on which picture was to accompany the story and instead asked her critics to take up the issue with the photo department in New York. However, the photo was not pulled down by The New York Times and the story appeared in its print edition under the headline: “Militants Stage Deadly Assault at Kenyan Hotel-Office Complex”.
This time, it was illustrated by four photographs of victims and survivors of the attack who were either killed in a very gruesome manner or injured.