Olivier Ngabirano’s media career started at the National University of Rwanda in 2010, when he worked with the university radio, Salus as a trainee journalist. Five years after, he is a news editor at TV One and at its sister radio station, Radio One. Moses Opobo had a chat with him.

Where did you go to school?

I started school at Rumasi Primary School, in Tanzania, before joining Rushaki Primary School in Gicumbi, Rwanda. For my secondary education I enrolled at College de Rushaki for O-level, and College de Rebero for A-level, from where I joined the National University of Rwanda to study journalism and communication.

Why journalism?

First, in my childhood I felt that I had a journalistic talent, the reason I chose media-related subjects right from A-level. Secondly, a part from informing, educating and entertaining people, journalists also play a big role in advocating for people who face injustice, which is something I consider to be inhuman.

What happened after you left the university radio?

I left at the beginning of 2012 and joined Radio One, which was at the time new. Later the parent company launched a TV station, which I’m currently working with as well as the radio.

As an editor, in my daily working time, I deal with editing both radio and TV scripts.

Scripts for any program are written in a very different way for the two areas of electronic communication. A TV play would have a far different script from one written for Radio.

For Radio, I only deal with script and audio while for TV; I’m obliged to edit three items which are script, audio, and images.

The news script is also different as a radio news reader has to describe the whole event through words and not to pause long whereas news reading for TV is punctuated with long pauses when footages of some event is shown. For me editing for TV is more complicated than radio.

What is your typical day at work?

I get up early morning at 5: am and I arrive at the station at 6: 15; that is the time I kick - off my daily activities till 6: 30 pm from Monday to Saturday.

I mainly work at the station in Kacyiru and rarely get out to the field because of tasks that I have to fulfill as well as news editing (cross-checking of errors and newsworthiness, gate keeping of news, and setting an agenda for news to be aired.

The good and bad side of this job:

A good and professional journalist always fights to balance a story with some government officials, individuals as well as businessmen and someone else. With this job, there are some people who appreciate the story because it has represented their good reputation and others who deflate the story as it has revealed their mistakes that are hidden.

Advice to fellow media practitioners

I advise my fellow journalists to maintain professionalism and to respect ethics and news values.

The future of the television in Rwanda

Television in Rwanda is growing tremendously, you can’t imagine how two years ago, Rwanda got more than stations while in the past we had only one that covered a very little scale of news.

With these TVs, Rwandans have been progressively developed in terms of media literacy contrary to the previous period where they feared to give their points of view either on economic, political and social issues.