Journalism requires one to make tough calls, some of them risky, as Citizen TV’s Linus Kaikai recalled during a past interview on Hot 96 FM.
Kaikai narrated that while he has made difficult decisions that affect him, one of the toughest calls he had to make involved risking the lives of his former colleagues at NTV.
“My own difficult decision was deciding to go to the war front in Congo during the 7-nation war and going through Rwanda, Goma (in Congo) into eastern Congo, all the way up to Kinshasa . It was a pure risk.
“The toughest decision I made for other journalists was to deploy a team to Somalia, during Operation Linda Nchi launch, because you’re putting lives at risk. Those are difficult decisions and in journalism, there are a lot of such decisions your have to make, almost on a daily basis or from time to time,” he spoke.
When asked whether he regretted making the tough calls, the acclaimed journalist responded, “I don’t regret it, especially because it ended well. I came back safely and the journalists I had deployed to Somalia came back safely and they won awards. I don’t want to name them here but they won very good awards for what they had to do.”
The News Gang panelist explained that in journalism, one has to take a personal initiative and go out of their way in order to grow and achieve success.
He further described the industry as very unpredictable because events and occurrences dictate how journalists go about their duties.
“Journalism is like emergency services where you always have to have that drive that takes you beyond the paperwork.
“This is a career whereby many times you don’t know what you’ll do for the day, and then events shape it for you. What happens when the DPP decides to order arrests in the evening? You can’t clock out at 5pm and that requires initiative,” he cited.
For Kaikai, he knew he wanted to be a journalist at a young age and even caught the attention of one of his teachers who would accord him access to many school trips and events where he got a taste of the industry.
