A day in the life of lawyer, anchor and human rights activist. This article was first published in the July-Aug edition of Aurora. Currently I am working at DawnNews as an anchor. The job primarily requires me to attend work once a week on the day of recording. It may sound like life is pretty relaxed but for that single day of recording I have to work round the clock throughout the week.
For me, any news, any place, any time is a work assignment which I have to review in order to decide what goes on the show. And these days it is not only about what is on the TV, in the newspaper or the radio that is news. Social media has added a whole new dimension.
To add to it my use of social media is not limited to gathering news, I also use it as an active place for activism. I feel blessed to be associated with various causes, which the apparently flexible hours at DawnNews make easier to attend to.
I stop my car on the side of a road and make random conversations with kids who annoy us otherwise with their Nazi wipers attacking our windscreens. I may not describe pursuing any cause as a job but it requires the same amount of effort be it organisation, promotion, communications, logistics or any aspect of a protest, collection drive or awareness campaign I am running. I also have a policy which I regret every day β which is to reply to every question regardless of how ill-informed it is.
So to a great extent I am married to my phone, much to the annoyance of my friends and family. I believe a great part of my social media interaction has to do with education and creating awareness of issues that affect us. In hindsight, the past three years have been much more stable and certain. I used to work for a a top law firm in the country within a strict corporate environment and a fixed pattern of how to eventually be promoted to partnership level in 10 years time.
