Revealed: Why Chamwada left Citizen TV
When the respected senior journalist, Alex Chamwada, called it a day at Citizen TV, he cited change and the need to move to the next level as an independent content producer.
Chamwada who started his broadcast career 20 years ago as an intern at KBC had started venturing into development journalism by the time he quit.
His love for development stories did not go down well with some of his bosses as they felt he was a better political reporter.
His latest assignment was Somalia food basket, an award winning three-part series on large scale farming in Somalia.
The project was funded by a grant obtained through a competition organized by the African Media Initiative in its programme, African Story Challenge competition, which supports development journalism.
LOCAL POLITICS
His trip to Afgooye, Somalia in August 2013 had rubbed some editors the wrong way as they felt he should have been covering local politics.
“I had been funded to pursue the development story and the editors needed me to cover local politics but I put my foot down and insisted on pursuing development which I am passionate about,” Chamwada said.
Chamwada, who has passion for development journalism stories, decided to pursue stories that have an impact on people hence the decision to venture into content provision.
“People think development stories are boring and not as exciting as politics and the fact that they require investment in terms of time and money makes many media houses shy away,” he added.
After tendering his resignation last month, the renowned journalist is now devoting his time and resources in pursuing more development stories like Somalia food basket that saw him win a continental award.