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Kenya: Mageria Had Broader Horizons, Exceptional Contacts As a Reporter
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Business Daily (Nairobi)
COLUMN
7 May 2008
Posted to the web 7 May 2008
Mutahi Mureithi
Doc. That is the nickname a few of David Mageria's friends fondly called him. It was his love of books and unmatched ambition that led to this nickname. During the mid nineties, when Mageria was reading for a Master's degree, he intimated to his friends that this was just the beginning of his education.
"I will", he said, with his usual cheeky smile, "have the title of 'Doctor' appended to my name pretty soon". Well, that never happened, mainly because of the cancer that claimed his life, but also pressure of work. But to some of us, he remained Doc to his death early last week.
The man loved his books. He even joined a book club so that he would exchange books with fellow enthusiasts. Books, he once told me, are man's best friend; they enrich a poor soul and broaden the horizons of the least travelled villager. What Mageria distinguished himself, however, was as a journalist par excellence. He cut a niche as a business reporter who could read market trends ahead of his compatriots.
His good friend and long time colleague, Patrick Maigua remembers clearly the day, 11 years ago, when Mageria entered Kenya's television history as the first journalist to host a live breakfast show. When he went on air that day, and, with his trademark smile said "Good morning, Kenya", a new era of journalism was born.
At KTN, he took business reporting to a new level, with his easy going yet authoritative demeanour on air. This was a time when business reporting was not given much prominence in the print and broadcast media. But Mageria established exceptional contacts in the business world, and many captains of industry regarded him as a friend.
Of course, with time, his professionalism and understanding of business reporting was bound to be noticed, and Reuters were only too happy to hire him as their correspondent in 1998, where he stayed till death. By this time, he had risen to the level of Business News Correspondent for East Africa.
David loved coffee. Not drinking, but writing about it. His last major assignment for Reuters was in Addis Ababa in February last year, where he covered the Eastern African Fine Coffees Association meeting. I once enquired of him how many stories he can generate on coffee, a subject I considered rather dour. "My problem is space, not copy" he said. Vintage Mageria.
The man was fun to be with, and spontaneity was his second nature. I remember a wedding of a fellow journalist and the professional photographer, for one reason or another, failed to turn up. David took over the role of official photographer - using a very basic Fuji camera that usually took blurry pictures- and snapped away throughout the day.
Of course, the pictures of that particular wedding were not the kind that you put on show for visitors - the camera lived up to its blurry nature - but the fact that Mageria took over the role without thinking twice about his credentials as a photographer allows us to take a peek at the beautiful heart of this man.He was a witty character, with a sense of humour to match.
Isaiah Kabira - his former boss at KTN and now Director of the Presidential Press Service - remembers occasions when Mageria would crack a joke in the newsroom, and then watch, with a deadpan expression, as others laughed their heart out.
Mageria embodied the spirit of Kenyan-ness, something that we seem to have been on the brink of losing the other day following the now infamous elections held last year.
He spoke fluent Luo and Kalenjin, in addition to his mother tongue, Kikuyu, and English. Death, like they say, has robbed us of a good man, a good journalist and a committed Christian. But, perhaps, we have not been robbed at all.
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Maybe we should be happy that the person who has left us is in a better repose than us. As Socrates, the great philosopher, mused just before he was condemned to die, death is indeed a good thing- for the dead.
"For the state of death," he said, "is one of two things. Either it is virtually nothingness, so that the dead has no consciousness of anything, or it is, as people say, a change or migration of the soul from this to another place."
Rest in Peace, Doc.
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