Citizen TV reporter tells her side of the story of controversial scoop
Citizen TV reporter Anne Mawathe has responded to critics who accused her of watching a mother lose her baby just to get a juicy story.
The journalist told a Facebook user, Fatuma Abdulkadir, who accused her (Mawathe) of being a disgrace to women, that she (Mawathe) was not there when the story was filmed and during scripting she could not hold her tears and even tried to walk away from it but no reporter was willing to take it up.
“Behind that woman you call a disappointment, is a woman who is as vulnerable as any of you, who has on many occasions had to walk away from stories because they are difficult to tell, who is haunted by these comments by a citizenry that hardly understands what it takes to be on certain difficult beats. But in it all, thank you for reminding me of our collective fragility,” wrote Ms Mawathe.
The health story featured a pregnant woman who was turned away at a city hospital and used public transport to seek the service at a mission facility where she lost her baby.
Ms Mawathe was asked by her critic why she insisted on working on the story knowing that it would hurt many viewers emotionally.
“Honestly? I had intended to. In fact, I had already suggested to switch it with someone else. Emotionally I felt I could not handle it. But I couldn’t get somebody to take it off me. These images… I previewed this story in between tears… I scripted it in tears. This I knew, was the predicament of hundreds of Kenyan women who can ill afford care in private hospitals. The strike was and is biting hard. The kind of reaction it elicited was not the intention. I am at a loss still,” wrote the reporter.
Ms Mawathe urged the public not to rush to vilify reporters before getting their side of the story as it is never easy to cover health stories.
