Technology is changing where we get our news. But great journalists still make a difference. In Uganda, you cannot speak of great journalists and leave out NTV’s Frank Walusimbi.
Known for being gentle, bold yet soft spoken, Walusimbi has anchored news, most often in Luganda for the past ten years. His masterly of Luganda has made popular news broadcasted on NTV every evening, and Tuwaye, a talk show where he sits on a bench with interviewees.
Unknown to many, Walusimbi also hosts a political program on Christian radio station Impact 98.4 FM.
How did he get this slot?
“The proprietor is a friend of mine, Dr Sserwada.” Walusimbi says. “He called me and I was like; why note? Why seat at home when there is an opportunity here. I like it. I really love hearing people air out their views.”
His program airs Saturday, 10 – 1 pm. “I’ve always wanted to be a journalist before anything else. And in my senior six vacation I was given an opportunity to present a programme called Praise the Lord on the Green Channel (part of UBC) which I left to do my degree in Mass Communication at UCU [Uganda Christian University, Mukono].” He recently told Daily Monitor.
“At school I did literature in Luganda and English. For Luganda, I did not write the UCE examinations. But I was quote keen, I kept following what the [students] were studying. For English I did the exams.”
Walusimbi says we are in a world where creative arts are employing almost half of the employable people.
“Talk of the music. The media its self is a creative art. That alone makes language traverse beyond boarders. I don’t do Luganda lone, I have done several pieces in English,” He says. “I did not come to NTV as a Luganda news anchor, I came to anchor in English, research showed that Luganda was highly consumable. We thus came up with the concept of NTV Akawungezi.”
Brought up from a Catholic family, Frank soon after accepted Christ as his personal Lord and Savior.
“God makes sense. One of the things I fear is dying and finding God, other than living in denial of God only to find out that he exists when you die.” He says.
