I grew up in rural Kenya in the 90s when Kenya had a powerful president who clung onto power for 24 years. Whenever he visited, there would be heavy security around him, a rope tied to keep the curious public far from him and mean looking uniformed military men carrying guns to watch.
I got curious about a group of men and women who could hop in an out of the ‘protected area’ at will. They had cameras with long lenses and I thought they are the most powerful people on the venue because unlike the gun wielding soldiers who had heavy uniform and seemed to be constantly under instructions, the dressed freely and went as close as they wished to the president who we were all jostling to see. I wanted to be them. The journalists.
There was no access to information, newspapers were hard to get but I managed to gather enough information on who a journalist is and what I would need to do to become one. I read any old papers my parents brought home whenever they bought items wrapped in newspapers and listened to a radio whenever I could. I got interest in learning English and becoming a good speaker and writer all the way to secondary School.
When I was called to join university, I was so heartbroken to learn I was not going to study journalism. The system then allowed very little room for choice. You had an admission letter to join a specific university to study a specific course depending on how you performed in the subjects after the O level exams.
At Kenyatta University where I was called to study Bachelor of Arts, there was no School of Journalism. I opted to study English and history as a foundation tool that would help me become a journalist, armed with the language and history as my key tools. I believed I had the talent and even told anyone who asked me what I was studying that I was training to a journalist.
We formed a journalism club and pushed the university to start the first campus radio which came at the tail end of our four years in 2008. I even went for an internship in a media house to stay closer to my dream.
My first job out of campus was a loan officer in a local bank and with the first money I got, I enrolled for a Post Graduate Diploma in Mass Communications. I got some academic papers for the profession finally and found an easy transition from the bank to the newsroom when I joined Nation Media Group in November 2014.
I had gathered several contacts and at my desk in the bank, which essentially involved interviewing clients on their businesses and essentially built contacts of businessmen and women from different sectors of the economy.
My banking experience and the rich contacts I had gathered gave me an easy time at the Business Desk in the newsroom.
Over the years, I wrote more than 3,000 articles including breaking exclusive business stories like the details of the multibillion-dollar loan Kenya signed with China to build and operate a Standard Gauge Railway line.
My joint exclusive story on controversial marketing of a nicotine pouch in Kenya by a British multinational in February 2021 drove change in law to reduce its harm on the youth and non-smokers. The substance meant to help smokers quit smoking turned out to be a recruitment for more smokers and it was sold to everyone including underage children .
It was published in the local and international media outlets and the story marked my departure from the local media transition to freelancing after the multinational tried to bribe me and I went on to talk about it. Bribery for journalists was a taboo topic in newsrooms and it turned out I had broken the taboo. I became isolated and I had to quit.
I tried my hand in corporate communications , writing about trees for an international non-profit. There was fire burning in my belly to do more stories that would shake big corporates and demand accountability, so I plotted a return.
A new television station was launching in November 2021 but I had no TV experience and it was broadcasting in vernacular language , Dholuo which is spoken by just over 10 percent of Kenya’s population.
I went in to learn how TV production works and discovered the magic of vernacular language TV that brought the traditionally excluded illiterate people in remote villages into media audience , allowed them to access information and developed the language by creating new words while promoting business and creating jobs for hundreds of journalists.
Having learnt video and how it works, I transitioned back to print as a multimedia freelance journalist. I have since published investigative and human interest stories for international publications like Reuters, The Sunday Times, The Guardian and The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, TBIJ.
An investigation I led on the killings and human rights abuses at a multinational agro-farm Del Monte Food in Kenya lead to reforms in the mega farm’s operations after the UK markets rejected its pineapples in protest.
I have also helped investigative teams working on impactful stories for The Telegraph , The New York Times and Channel 4 News .
