Citizen TV news anchor Jeff Koinange has had a very illustrious career in media spanning decades. A lot of Kenyans knew him when he was on CNN and many more when he came back to Kenya.
However, not much of Jeff's life is known beyond what is in the public domain.
Jeff’s first job was office clerk at an American bank that was operating in Nairobi. The job was courtesy of Rachel Koigi, his mother’s former student.
He then applied for flight attendant position with Pan Am, a US airline. Jeff was called for an interview three months later and was lucky to be selected among 40 other Kenyans. For the next 18 months, from February 1986 to June 1987, Jeff worked for the airline’s local flight as an attendant, plying Nairobi-Monrovia.
All the while, passengers, especially after listening to Jeff’s in-flight announcements insisted broadcasting is what best suited him. In between the joy and fun that came with flying, Jeff thought of going back to school to study journalism.
A few months later, he quit from Pan Am, ending his 18-month steamy stint as a flight attendant.
It was Mohammed ‘Mo’ Amin, the celebrated photojournalist (now late) while working with Reuters who called Jeff up from the US in 1995.
Mo was in the process of launching the African Journal, a weekly television magazine featuring African stories.
Unfortunately, Jeff arrived in Nairobi in September 1995 to find Mo fired from Reuters. His job was still valid though on the African Journal.
In May 1997, Jeff got his first call up as a first responder – a seasoned journalist flown in for Breaking News stories. It was in Zaire, now Democratic Republic of Congo, where child soldiers had overthrown the then President Mobutu Seseseko’s regime.
Jeff, with various world’s news agencies and television including CNN, was to later comb Africa’s cities ravaged with war and natural calamities, telling the story of Africa to the world.
Listen to the 1997 video of Jeff and compare with his current news bulletins.
