Facebook Live with Frenny Jowi: Journalism as a profitable career choice(July 6)
For 4 years, Frenny had a successful career at one of the world’s leading international broadcasters, the BBC. Join us for a Facebook Live session with her on July. 6th, as she shares with us how journalism has been a profitable career for her. Journalism as a sector is evolving, and there are plenty of job opportunities in the field. However, Aspiring journalists have to build their experience and gather certain skill sets to thrive in the industry. If you’re interested in starting (or growing) a career as a media Motherland Mogul, then you have a lot to learn from Frenny Jowi. Frenny started her career in journalism as an intern at the BBC African Bureau in Nairobi and quickly scaled through her career as a journalist, amplifying African voices and stories. Join Frenny on Thursday, July 6th, for a 30-minute Facebook Live session where she’ll be discussing journalism as a profitable career choice, and the skills aspiring journalists need to acquire. Register for this Facebook Live below and ask Frenny all your pressing questions. [bctt tweet=”Interested in a journalism career? Join @Fjowi for a Facebook Live on Thur, July. 6th ” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”] Some of the topics we’ll cover: How to make it as a journalist Media career choices for young people in Africa Moving from employment to entrepreneurship Personal PR: Social media etiquette and how it impacts your professionalism Why young Africans should demand quality content from media outlets(African advocates of public interest journalism) Facebook Live Details: Date: Thursday, July 6th, 2017 Time: 2pm Lagos / 3pm Johannesburg / 4pm Nairobi Where: https://www.facebook.com/sheleadsafrica/ Watch here: https://www.facebook.com/sheleadsafrica/videos/1907640032792641/ About Frenny Jowi Frenny Jowi is a journalist, digital media and PR consultant who is currently consulting at Media Focus on Africa, as a radio producer, media relations trainer and digital journalism trainer. She also works as a volunteer youth mentor and freelance journalist. For 4 years Frenny had a successful career at one of the world’s leading international broadcasters, the BBC. While working for BBC Africa both in Kenya and the United Kingdom, she led several productions including creating digital content for younger audiences and news coverage of historic President Obama visit to Africa. In June 2016, she took one of the lead roles in setting up Kenya’s first 24-hour news channel, KTN News. Her work helped direct the day to day running of the newsroom and training journalists on storytelling and social media skills. She has a BA in media studies from the University of Nairobi.
Frenny Jowi: Never muffle your dreams thinking that you are not ready yet
[bctt tweet=”Reaping profits from the media space while vouching for public-interest journalism is Frenny Jowi’s hustle” via=”no”] Frenny Jowi is a journalist, a digital media and PR consultant. She also creates media coverage strategies with a bias on social media campaigns. Currently Frenny is the lead consultant at Media Focus on Africa, as a media relations trainer, digital journalism trainer, and radio producer. For 4 years Frenny had a successful career at one of the world’s leading international broadcasters, the BBC. While working for BBC Africa both in Kenya and the United Kingdom, she led several productions including creating digital content for younger audiences and news coverage of historic president Obama visit to Africa. Showing off her inner #MotherlandMogul, Frenny is also the Founder Image Masters PR & Communications, where she works in partnership with the UK-based Peter Burdin Africa Foundation and world roving Ilona Eveleens Media. To top that all off, Frenny also works as a volunteer youth mentor and freelance journalist. Tell us, how did you get to the BBC from a local Kenyan media house? I worked briefly at a little-known community radio station, Exodus Network, then moved into a giant newsroom, the Nation Media Group headquarters in Nairobi. It was my first real experience of working in a converged in newsroom. I enjoyed the complexity of things. KTN came to recruit from my school when I was in my third year. My adventurous self then jumped into TV journalism. All this while, the editors made me file international stories as a trainee reporter. The tone of the wire copies about Africa made me uncomfortable. I wondered, where was Africa’s genuine voice on the global debate and take on issues? I wanted the news through African eyes for the world. As a young African I was best placed to tell the story. The international broadcaster I had grown up listening to, was the first to spot my talent, so I joined as an intern after doing some voice test, translation and script writing interviews. I started off as an intern at the East Africa Bureau in Nairobi and quickly gained skills as a bilingual reporter and producer for BBC Swahili and many other BBC World Service Programmes/ My favourite was and still is the Fifth Floor Programme. I told the African story as I had dreamt. I was nominated for the 2014 Kenya Annual Journalism Excellence in Journalism Awards. [bctt tweet=”I told the African story as I had dreamt – Frenny Jowi ” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”] What prompted you to move back to Kenya? Moving to London to work for the BBC was one the most exciting moments in my career at the BBC. I loved London’s palace gardens! Kensington was my best, the Gothic architecture and the Thames during summer. After one year of doing so much including producing President Obama’s visit to Africa, my work visa practically sent me packing! That was not a bad thing, I was to wait for one year cool off period to renew my work visa, but then came flooding ideas of what I could do at home instead of a rigorous visa application process. At the time when I lived in London, there was a growing anti-migrant sentiment. My work visa had labeled me such, migrant staff. London treated me well, but I don’t want to shy away from saying the migrant stories made me very uncomfortable. I was working from the centre of the world when waves of Brexit became more pronounced. I was right at the centre of one of the world’s most influential broadcasters when news of drowning African migrants would dominate the news for weeks. Meeting my former schoolmates who had settled in London permanently, we often talked much about we could do for the continent, it wasn’t just talk for me. I am back home to do something for the continent. Why do you call yourself a media entrepreneur? When I started working in the newsroom, I realized the industry was evolving fast and profits were put first. I felt that this compromised storytelling as public interest was given second priority or none at all. I also saw the potential in digital migration and social media that opened up space for multiple media houses. This was supported with more democratic space in Kenya, that allowed countless radio and TV stations to operate freely. So, I sought to reap profits from the growing media space. At the same time, I wanted to rigorously vouch for a public-interest journalism model. Despite lacking experience in running a business, I registered my company and started off pitching for work as a communications consultant and content producer. I was confident the myriad new radio and TV stations needed quality content. It was just the right time to turn my journalism skills into a strong business idea. My company, Image Masters, had been a dormant Facebook page for four years. I breathed life into it, created a company profile and hit the ground running producing for the BBC’s Arts Daily Programme. I then moved on to consult for KTN, a leading TV station in Kenya that was then setting up Kenya’s first 24-hour news channel. Since then, I have worked with many other clients create alternative educative content for younger audiences. My biggest project now radio plays and shows themed on women leadership. I have a bias for social media which many organizations are now embracing as mainstream. One year on, I am now proudly self-employed and working with great partners to deliver for clients. I am leveraging on partnerships to compensate for the need of staff. The future can only be bright. What is the first thing any young woman who wants to start out as a media entrepreneur do? Let confidence and courage lead you. Never muffle your dreams thinking that you are not ready yet. Carefully reconsider your talents, skills, and networks. Figure out how much of your abilities are lying underutilized. Get to work. I know you may
Didi Akinyelure: Success has no format
Didi Akinyelure is a producer and business news anchor who hosts the CNBC Africa morning show called “Open Exchange, West Africa”. She is also the 2016 winner of the prestigious BBC World News “Komla Dumor Awards”. Didi calls herself an accidental journalist since she never had any formal education in journalism. With a financial background, a passion for real estate and telling African stories, Didi wanted to be a media entrepreneur who makes and sells contents to news networks. Instead, she found herself on live television after being discovered by the Country Manager of CNBC Africa. Didi believes that success has no specific format and with passion, preparation, hard work and research, one can achieve anything. Tell us a brief history of your career before CNBC? Before CNBC, I worked with a financial advisory company in the UK to make some money since investment firms pay very well but my passion was real estate. I did not know where I developed the passion but I knew it was there so I started attending real estate investment seminars to learn more about it. After working for a while with the financial advisory company, I decided to branch out from financial planning to real estate. I then got a job at Barclays Wealth Management where I purchased two properties. After indulging in my passion for real estate, I became an investor and moved back to Nigeria to work with asset management division of investment bank, Oceanic Capital for slightly over two years. I then resigned from my position due to the financial crisis which made things difficult for the company. The capital side of the company got mixed with banking and most of us did not want that since this resulted in being paid less. My job became less interesting and exciting so I saw it as an opportunity to chase what I was passionate about. Thus, changing the perception of Africa by telling the African story through real estate and real estate investment. Why and how did you switch to journalism? What led you to work for CNBC? Journalism was never part of the plan. The plan was to pursue real estate investment in Nigeria. However, I found out that one needs lots of capital to be able to pursue this career. While in the UK, it is very easy for someone out of the university to get on the property market where you can buy property without much cash. In order to not let my passion die, I decided to make a documentary about real estate in Africa and sell it to any news network that will show an interest. I convinced my mother to accompany me to Cape Town where I filmed a documentary about real estate. I had never stood in front of a camera before and after 30 minutes, the production crew commented on a work well done. I tried marketing the pilot with the news network where I found out that the networks did not buy documentaries directly rather, I needed companies to sponsor my work. This proved very difficult since I had almost zero experience and it is not easy getting someone to sponsor your work. I then decided to go to CNBC Africa because I had seen their shows on the screen while I was working at Oceanic Capital. I had a meeting with Country manager who accepted my CD. He commended me a work well done and asked I asked me to join their team since I was a natural. I declined. The idea was to be a media entrepreneur who creates contents and sells it to interested buyers and not to work for anyone. So I went back to hustling and later decided to consider the CNBC offer. I had become a liability to my entire family who were wondering what I intended doing with my life. In just a couple of years, I had switched from banking to real estate to making documentaries. As much as they loved me, they did not understand the path I had chosen since there had not been any results. I thought I was going to be filming documentaries but rather, the job description was for live television. I decided to give it a shot as I had the financial background CNBC was looking for. Who was the biggest inspiration for your choice of career? This is a tough one since journalism was never my dream. It was somewhat thrust upon me so I refer to myself as the “accidental journalist”. I have always been inspired by Isha Sesay from CNN but I never for once thought about being a journalist or a news anchor. I didn’t even know that journalism was going to be a part of my life. So what I did was to learn from all anchors I met at CNBC and those I saw on television. What has been your personal key to success as an anchor on the CNBC? My personal key to success was learning to accept criticism and letting my passion shine through. The first 3 months at CNBC were very tough because journalism is very different from banking and asset management where you perform similar tasks each day. In journalism, each day comes with a different story so I had to keep up with news and conduct lots of research. I came to understand that on live TV, people are not that forgiving compared to other jobs where you are given a grace period of two or three months to be conversant with the work. Whenever I went off air, I was being told about the wrong things I did on set. This is when I had to be strong inside and accept the criticism and turn them into strengths. Also, what I’ve learnt from this career is that I was bored in my other life. I was doing the job for the paycheck while with this one, I am doing it because I love and enjoy