Career Path With NMG’S Editorial Director, Mutuma Mathiu

What is the future of the Nation under your leadership?

The future of the Nation is digital; the future is more collaborative, more network, the future is technology-driven, the future is a lot more modern, the future is more African. We are expanding to all the African countries. That’s the future for Nation.

What would you advise the Kenyan youth?

Not to become cynical. The worst thing in life is cynicism. Cynicism is where you stop believing in a better day, stop believing in your passion, and stop believing that there is anything good in life. You must never get there.

Society has never been fair to the youth; we have horrible people who have been in charge of our affairs, but now we know, and we can work at making it better for the youths.

It would be horrible for my generation to hand over this country to our children in the state in which it is.

What is the one thing you are proud of in your career?

The day Nation.Africa was launched; that was a great day. And it is a day that will probably resonate in the history of African media. After talking and thinking for so long, we started a critical transition of leaving media as we knew it when we started our careers and started building media of the future. That was a wonderful day.

What has been the worst season for media?

It was in 2007 during the post-election violence. I have always believed we could have done more to prevent the loss of lives and the destruction that happened in this country. We ought to have done that by consistently reporting about the incitement and everything that was happening.

Now where we find hate, we expose it because it is our responsibility to say what is not right and prevent taking the country into a bad place.

I didn’t say the pandemic because the 2007 violence was worse than Covid-19. Many of the Covid-19 deaths are preventable if the vaccines were available, and if people followed the health protocols, lives could have been saved.

However, 2007 was completely different. You would notice we have been very proactive in dealing with Covid-19 in terms of public information; the media was promoting masks even before World Health Organization(WHO) recommended.

What has the pandemic taught you?

It opened our eyes that your neighbour is as important as yourself because you might be protecting yourself, but you both will die if your neighbour is not protecting themselves. It has taught us to be less selfish, and it has defined our place as Africans globally.

Americans are asking for a third Covid-19 jab, boaster shot; we haven’t had the first. The only vaccine we have access to is the one that nobody else wants. So they are giving it for free.

Africans should open their eyes now and know that they are alone. We either survive together, or we sink together. No one will come and fix our problems; we have to build our societies and care for our people.

What are you most scared about in life?

I spent my childhood being trained not to be afraid. Maybe what I’m scared of is not to be afraid. If I wake up in the morning and don’t have money, I don’t know how to proceed because I start my day planning what you will do. Health is important; not having health is a massive fear. If there is a general meltdown of the economy and our businesses no work and people have no jobs, that worries me. I don’t like snakes.

What is your typical day like?

I have woken up at 5 am since my school days. Then I run for an hour then shower and come to work. I spend like an hour in the bathroom because that is where I plan all my day. But I work best between 4 pm and midnight.

How would you spend your last seven days on earth?

I would go to Mombasa and sit on the beach and drink beer. I would also talk to my friends with who I grew up.

One thing we don’t know about you?

If I weren’t a journalist, I would be a mechanic or a driver. I love cars. I would be happy doing something like that. I love big cars, small cars. Sometimes just seeing them is enough. I don’t like football, but I enjoy athletics and I fancy myself as some runner. If I were stronger, I would have done the marathon.

Your advice to a younger Mutuma Mathiu?

I would have been less introverted. I probably would have enjoyed life a little bit more. There is much more to life; there are much more colours, there is much more joy in life outside of the newsroom. I would have taken more trips, walked along the beach, danced more and done life a little bit more.

What do you do to unwind?

I do a lot of online reading, watch movies, and watch a lot of news. I am active, so I run, I walk a lot. I still don’t socialise that much, but sometimes I meet up with my friends. I no longer drink, I am trying to detox, and maybe I will become toxic again.

I am going to write, but I don’t know what. I enjoy writing. I come to life when I write. There is going to be a lot of writing in my future. If I feel energetic, I might take a PhD in digital journalism so I can also continue to keep my memory fresh.

I no longer do things for financial return. I lost the urge to look for money somewhere along the way. There was a time I was driven by investment, and I worked so hard to try and attain financial freedom.

I want to see a better country for my children and your children and all of us, and that’s because I know that we can have things in a slightly different manner.

I don’t mean I want to be a big guy, but if I am serving in a small board and I can help writers, musicians to give them the opportunity to protect their copyrights, that is the kind of thing I will do, but there is no retirement in my life.