Citizen TV Swahili News Anchor Swaleh Mdoe has been suspended from appearing on air.
A highly placed source at the Dennis Pritt Road-based media house told Kenyans.co.ke that the news anchor was suspended after skipping a 1:00 pm bulletin on Tuesday, January 23.
Since then, Mdoe has not appeared on air for more than three weeks now.
Our source indicated that the TV veteran had allegedly gone for a medical check-up on the day he missed presenting the daytime news bulletin.
The journalist failed to notify his supervisor on the day in question, leading to the editorial director's decision to suspend him.
When he returned to work the next day, he was summoned by his bosses who barred him from appearing on air indefinitely.
It's said that Mdoe has been reporting to work every day as usual since the verbal suspension was issued.
The seasoned news anchor hosts the Monday prime-time Swahili bulletin at 7:00 pm as well as the 1:00 pm bulletins on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
His career kicked off in 1991 with experiences in both print and electronic media. He has worked at the Kenya Times, Standard Group, The Message, Weekly Mail, BBC, Nation TV, and KTN.
Between 1999 and 2001, he served as a presenter at NTV before joining KTN where he was a news anchor and supervising the Kiswahili team between 2001 and 2006.
He later switched to Citizen TV where he has been a permanent fixture on Kenyan screens since March 2007.
In his career, Mdoe has won numerous awards among them Journalist of the Year by the Kenya Union of Journalists (KUJ) as well as News Anchor of the Year (Kiswahili) for the year 2003 and again in 2004.
