Hilary Ng’weno obituary | Newspapers & magazines

My friend and colleague Hilary Ng’weno, who has died aged 83, was a journalist, author and publisher who expanded the journalistic – and therefore the democratic – space in Kenya. He was also a mentor to countless journalists, many of whom went on to notable positions in the Kenyan media.

He was born in Nairobi to Regina and Morris Onyango, a train driver with East African Railways. The family lived in employee quarters near the railway tracks in Muthurwa in the city, and Hilary attended the nearby St Peter Clavers primary school, then Mangu high school. From there he went to Harvard University in the US on a scholarship to study physics.

After his junior year, he travelled to the UK with the intention of moving on to the Soviet Union. He ended up spending nearly a year in London, waiting for his visa and doing odd jobs, before deciding to return to Harvard.

After graduation in 1962 he went back to Kenya and began working at the Nation newspaper. In 1964, six months after independence and aged 26, he became the paper’s first African editor – much to the consternation of some of his white colleagues. Hilary had his ideas about the direction the Nation’s editorial policy should take but he faced a lot of opposition from senior staffers; the following year, feeling his position as editor was compromised, he resigned.

That same year he was in London again, to speak on press freedom at the 14th general assembly of the International Press Institute, held at Grosvenor House. Other participants included Harold Wilson, Cecil King and Lord Shawcross.

Hilary established a publishing company, Stellascope, as an outlet for his endless flow of creative ideas, including the Weekly Review, an independent news analysis magazine established in 1975, where I first worked with him. He also set up a children’s newspaper, Rainbow (1976), edited for 20 years by his wife, Fleur (nee Grandjouan), an environmentalist, whom he had married in 1963, as well as a new national daily (the Nairobi Times, 1977) and several other magazines.

Despite endless financial problems and always operating with make-do equipment, Hilary persisted, aided by his loyal staff. In 1982, when there was a coup attempt against the government of President Daniel arap Moi, several employees spent a frightening night at the office amid gunfire, ensuring that the Times was on the streets the next day – the only newspaper that appeared.

The Weekly Review folded in 1999. Hilary branched into television, launching his own channel, STV, which he sold after a year, then entering into an agreement with NTV to produce a number of films and TV programmes on the history of Kenya. A 15-part series called The Making of a Nation (2007), followed by the DVD release of more than 150 profiles of eminent Kenyans, entitled Makers of a Nation, provide an important historical record.

Hilary is survived by Fleur, their daughters, Amolo and Bettina, and a grandson, Olivier.