A great decade with NewsDay

GroWING up, I never really envisioned myself as someone who would end up in journalism. Yes, my english-writing skills were very good — even at primary school level, but despite those writing skills, I thought that my calling was to become a teacher.

but I never became a teacher. After working for several years as a Hansard reporter for the Parliament of Zimbabwe, I ventured into journalism in 2010 by accident. I landed at NewsDay.

I still remember that I applied for a job at the then new publication as a proofreader because I felt that I would do well correcting scripts.

they did shortlist me. However, I was told during the interview that I had been shortlisted for the position of reporter — not proofreader. the paper then was only a few months old.

I was later to learn during the interview from the then editors barnabas thodhlana and moses mudzwiti that they wanted me to become a parliamentary reporter due to my experience with Parliament of Zimbabwe and knowledge of legislative issues.

Sadly, I never got to work with thodhlana and mudzwiti. When I finally joined NewsDay on July 1, 2010 they had already left.

In the newsroom I found reporters like moses matenga, Feluna Nleya and Phillip Chidavaenzi, who is now features & lifestyle editor, who were already employed before me.

matenga and Nleya were fresh from college and I got solace in that they also were still novices in the media field like me. much more experienced reporters like owen Gagare and the late mernat mafirakureva joined us later and together we came up with very good stories that promoted the NewsDay brand.

Although I joined the newsroom already with a degree and post-graduate qualification, I owe my journalism skills to the inhouse training — thanks to the first NewsDay news editors tangai Chipangura and Loughty Dube. Although I cannot speak on behalf of my colleague Charles

Laiton, I still think he is one of the journalists who also benefited from the inhouse training because he was also a specialist in court issues, but had no newsroom experience.

the first NewsDay editor I worked with was vincent Kahiya. He was a very good motivator. He believed in me. Despite that 2010 was my first year in the newsroom, I was never treated with kids’ gloves. We competed for diaries with more senior reporters.

over the past 10 years, I had the privilege to also work with big names in the media field including former editors Constantine Chimakure, brian mangwende as well as Nevanji madanhire and the current group editor-in-chief, Wisdom mdzungairi.

they all had different management styles, but we learnt a lot from each one of them.

Deputy editor Zerubabel mudzingwa, who for several years has been guiding us and correcting our mistakes, Patrice makova and Yvonne Gasura, as well as ropafadzo mapimhidze, who has since left, were all instrumental in helping me develop into the journalist I have become.

I feel proud to be one of those people who contributed to making NewsDay a preferred brand for the past 10 years.

As a female reporter, I know that journalism is a very challenging field. It can be dangerous too. And producing a good brand like NewsDay needs good teamwork and zeal to compete and be noticed in a competitive environment where a majority of journalists employed by Alpha media Holdings are multi-award-winning journalists, me included of course.