The remarkable journalism career of Dorothy Kweyu started in 1975 when she quit her teaching job at a secretarial college in Nairobi to become a trainee reporter in a small publishing firm.
In her revelation, Kweyu who worked with the Nation Media Group (NMG) for more than forty years, developed a passion for media from the Baraza newspaper which was one of the publications those days.
Further, she stated that her father also liked reading, making her develop a similar trait, before becoming a wordsmith.
In an interview with Nation Africa, Kweyu pointed out that the visit by the late Paul Ochieng, a popular journalist then, to Mukumu Girls’ High School where she was a student boosted her dream of pursuing and practicing journalism.
After completing her Bachelor of Arts in Literature and Linguistic course at the University of Nairobi, she unsuccessfully tried to join NMG and Standard Media Group.
She would settle for teaching where she was earning Ksh.3,500 per month.
Also Read: Terryanne Chebet Pens Emotional Letter to Raila
As a teacher, she never gave up on one day working as a journalist. She stumbled on a tiny newspaper advertisement with opportunities for trainee reporters – that was her turning point.
Kweyu says she applied for the position even though the name of the media organization was not indicated in the advert.
She yearned to join the media and after many interviews, she got the job.
“The employer was a publishing firm that did in-house publications for different clients. I became the founding editor of Women’s Voice, a publication of Maendeleo ya Wanawake,” she told Voice, a pullout of Friday Nation.
Dorothy Kweyu Joins NMG
In 1979, Kweyu joined the NMG after spending less than a year at the publishing firm.
Her satisfactory results while a writer for the Sunday Nation saw her promoted to a news editor and a revise editor at the NMG.
While comparing the 80s with the current days, she says getting a journalism job was easier then.
Even so, she says journalism was not an easy profession for women in early days.
Kweyu revealed that there was only one woman at NMG when she joined.
“Today there is a good number of female journalists occupying senior positions in the media industry,” she said.
Additionally, she said women joining the media these days have others to look up to and all that it takes to pursue their career.
Also Read: Ex-KTN Anchor Grace Kuria Makes TV Comeback
Dorothy Breaks from Media
In 1987, Kweyu took a break from journalism to become an activist with international organizations.
She founded Interlink Rural Information Service (Iris) which specialized in writing feature stories from Kenya.
In 2014 she went back to her role as a revise editor at NMG before quitting for the second time.
In 2018, the NMG returned her to her position which she held up to October last year when she retired.
Dorothy Kweyu Awards
Viva Magazine awarded Kweyu as the best journalist of the year and the best woman writer in 1984.
She also won the Lifetime Contribution Award and Lifetime Achievement Award by Media Council of Kenya in 2016 and 2021 respectively.
