“For me, no story is too small if it speaks to the ordinary Kenyan,” says Wangu Kanuri, a multimedia journalist and contributor to the Nation Media Group working across print, video and audio formats. Wangu is one of three finalists in our competition to find the Young Journalist of the Year 2025.
From a young age Wangu was ‘fascinated by news and newspapers’. It was while she was at university that the 28-year-old realised journalism was about ‘impact, informing, resonating and being a vessel for stories that matter’. She has taken that belief with her into her professional life where her human-interest stories focus on health, gender, climate change and everyday life.
Snakes in classrooms
For Classrooms or ovens? The price of schooling under a scorching sun, one of three stories she submitted for the competition, Wangu travelled for two days to see and hear first-hand how climate change is impacting school children. She found some with painful blisters from walking to school in the extreme heat which was also attracting snakes into the classroom.
“Writing this story was heartbreaking,” she says adding that 95 percent of the children she met had no shoes. “Conversations around climate change have mostly revolved around experts and data. This story puts a face to the crisis, showing its direct link to education and health.”
Journalism is about impact, informing, resonating and being a vessel for stories that matter.
The responsibility of a journalist
Wangu believes she has a responsibility to tell underreported stories driven in part by the response she gets from ordinary people which ‘reaffirms why such stories must be told’.
In another story, she speaks to two women who performed female genital mutilation on 700 girls before abandoning the practice to champion girls’ education over harmful traditional practices.
Wangu who is currently a CNN Academy ‘Voices from the South’ fellow says being shortlisted for the Young Journalist Award is ‘deeply meaningful’. “It affirms that the stories I chase are resonating beyond my own newsroom. It's encouraging to keep digging for the truth while amplifying the voice of the underrepresented communities.”
Young Journalist of the Year Competition
The Thomson Foundation Young Journalist of the Year Award is run in partnership with the UK’s Foreign Press Association (FPA). The competition is open to journalists aged 30 and under, from countries with a Gross National Income (GNI) per capita of less than less than USD 20,000. This year’s winner will be announced at the FPA’s Media Awards on November 24th in London.
