Journalism is the only job I did in Zimbabwe, starting as a novice in 1987 after graduating from Harare Polytechnic College with a degree in mass communication. I worked at the government’s Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation Radio Four. We produced educational programs. but for the most part it served as a government mouthpiece. All content was monitored, even the music we played on air.

As I got confident on the job, I was entrusted with hosting one of the popular but sensitive phone-in programs. I would invite various specialists in their field of work to talk about their vocations and how they were contributing to society. Listeners would call in and have their questions answered live on the air.

Government ministers began showing a lot of interest in this show, especially as elections approached. They started requesting to be interviewed.

Zimbabwe started deteriorating when its economy started sliding in the laste 1990s. This began when the government gave huge payouts to more than 36,000 unemployed former freedom fighters. The ripple effects were harrowing, and people started losing their jobs.

My journalistic nose for news started to itch. I remembered the training I had had—promoting transparency, holding the government accountable, and advocating for citizen’s rights. I lined up different government ministers to participate in my no-holds-barred live radio talk show. My aim was to discuss the impacts of government cuts and to investigate how people were managing as social services were reduced and privatized. As listeners exposed more and more government officials during these broadcasts, I found myself in a precarious situation.

I was cautioned. The phone calls from listeners were now being recorded before they were aired. The time allocated to this program was reduced. I began to be monitored closely, and all my spoken-word recordings were assessed before each broadcast. This was just the beginning of my woes.