By Bongiwe Dlamini

MBABANE:Aldrin Sampear, the outgoing Presenter of SaFM, a South African Broadcasting Corporation(SABC) radio station says, journalists goes through a lot in their line of duty and apart from political persecution, some get fired by their superiors merely for pursuing critical stories.

Speaking to this Swaziland News during an exclusive interview with editor Zweli Martin Dlamini on Friday, the popular Presenter noted the killing and harassment of journalists in the Middle East and countries like eSwatini but clarified that, journalists are also persecuted in the workplace merely for being critical.

“You know Zweli, the difficultly about solidarity amongst journalists is;you are always told that you are never the story.As a journalist, the story is not you and sometimes, unfortunately like for instance what happened with the journalists who have been killed in Palestine is; they then actually do become the story and we need to then focus on what the story is and what does solidarity mean. We must stand alongside those journalists and do highlight the plight of those journalists. To me it is important, because people have chosen the career of telling the truth,a career of being brave and ensuring that, you speak truth to power, which is very very important.But I also think that Zweli, you know a lot of the time our focus tend to be on persecution of journalists and even the killing of journalists, that for me is very necessary. But there’s another element that we hardly speak about and that is how sometimes because of the pressure that comes with the work, we don’t have the conversation about the livelihood that is at stake, the possibility of somebody losing the job because of the story that they ran.The possibility of somebody losing the job because of the investigative piece that they are busy with. So you have that livelihood that is always under threat that we don’t speak about a lot”, said the new NewsRoom Afrika Presenter when speaking to editor Zweli Martin Dlamini. 

On another note,Presenter Aldrin Sampear said he had a good time on SaFm, interacting with the audience, he described radio a platform with influence in that, it allows the Presenter  to ‘bound’ and interact with the audience.

“Radio is my first love because what radio does, radio forces you to actually connect with your audience”, said the outgoing SaFm Presenter.