Peter N.

To be a teacher, to impart knowledge on inquisitive minds, to mold all-round pupils, to look after them just like my own, and to guide them to wisdom – these were the tenets of my career projection. It’s them that I was preoccupied with as I enrolled at Moi University, Kenya, in late 1988 for a degree course in Education. But my projected career took a sharp turn ... and I ended up taking a Bachelor's in Information Sciences. Ever since my goals have been to publish topical, human-interest stories professionally, compassionately, simply and quickly for mass consumption. I have worked variously as a Consultant Editor and Production Editor at top newspapers in Kenya, and lately, as a Web-magazine editor specialising in feature articles and documentaries. On a daily basis, my tasks have been to generate story ideas, copy-taste and sub-edit the proposed stories to ensure factual, grammatical and non-libelous content, and to design the subsequent articles — complete with relevant illustrations and photos. Along the way, I started an in-house pamphlet to advise junior reporters on common mistakes and different ways of passing across the same message. It included tips on authoritative writing, common errors and how to avoid them, the best approaches to feature journalism, and where and how to ‘smell out’ a good human-interest article. Many years later today, I'm still doing the same. Cheers!