Journalism is a very involving career that that Citizen TV's Linus Kaikai once compared to police or medical work, whereby one is supposed to be ready for duty.
These journalists highlighted below have gone ahead and built their own production houses and continued broadcasting and broadened their horizons.
The following scribes have pushed the envelope and built brands stand out from the work stations that propelled them to fame.
John Allan Namu left KTN in 2015 and started his own media house known as Africa Uncensored which continued his investigative features.
"When I left KTN four years ago, I became one of the co-founders of Africa Uncensored which had the mandate to show the continent in a different way," Namu revealed in an interview on KTN in July 2019.
He also revealed that what pushed him into starting the production company was his love for in-depth investigative features which could not get enough time on mainstream television.
"I sat down with one of my partners, Kasim Mohammed in 2011 and begun what has been eight years of great features," the investigative journalist added.
Another journalist who took a similar path is Julie Gichuru who also started out in an investigative role at KTN on a series called The Inside Story.
According to her personal website, she then went ahead and had other shows like The Voice and Showdown on NTV. Gichuru then hosted the Voices of Reason program on Citizen TV after the post-election violence in 2007.
Gichuru now owns Arimus Media Limited which oversees the production of quality African content such as Africa Leadership Dialogues, the Great Debaters Contest and entertainment series such as Maisha, Glam Show and Trading Bell.
Alex Chamwada is also another scribe who started his own media production house after a great run on KTN.
"I worked at both KTN and Citizen TV but quit employment in 2014 to create stories out of the international experience I had reporting from overseas," Chamwada disclosed.
Chams Media was born of this love for stories according to Chamwada who divulged this on KTN in December 2018.
"Building my own outfit gave me the advantage to grow talent, equip myself and use my networks in my own style and my own pace. This was better for me because remaining in the newsroom hoping to grow horizontally which had come to a limit," he narrated.
His company produces The Chamwada Report and Daring Abroad which covered news features from Africa and beyond and also airs on KTN.
"I wanted to be different and that is why I started Chams Media. You may be on air smiling but behind that was immense pressure," he concluded.
Media power couple Lulu Hassan and Rashid Abdalla also own their own production firm. They are the masterminds behind shows like Maza, Aziza, Moyo and their latest one called Maria which airs on Citizen TV.
In an exclusive interview with Kenyans.co.ke on Tuesday, October 22, Lulu Hassan divulged that the new show was also an idea that was mooted with help from her husband.
"We have a group of writers but Rashid spearheads everything. He is very creative, intelligent and wise. I head the technical team and together we ensure that everything is near perfect," Hassan lauded.
"We wanted to uplift actors and we decided to pump new blood in the new show. There are very many talented people out there. Kenyans were used to the veteran talented faces and even if you gave them new roles, no one would notice the change we wanted," Lulu Hassan noted about their new show.
