From the front row to the turbulence
THOMAS NKHOMA | Monday April 27, 2026 06:00
We spoke warmly at first. The usual catching up and then, almost inevitably, our conversation drifted back to 1997. Not to speeches. Not to budget statements. But to the sky above Kinshasa.
In my years as a journalist, I have had what many would call a front-row seat to history. I interacted with Rev. Jesse Jackson who passed away recently at 84. I covered five of Botswana’s presidents (Sir Ketumile Masire, Dr Festus Mogae, Lt Gen Ian Khama and Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi) at AU and SADC summits. I stood in press pools that included world leaders such as Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. There were motorcades, state banquets, carefully choreographed diplomacy, the kind of moments that make for framed photographs and polished headlines.
From the outside, it looks glamorous. However, journalism also has its headwinds. We were returning from the African Development Bank (ADB) Summit in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. Our stopover was in Kinshasa, then Zaire, before proceeding to what is now O.R. Tambo International Airport. As we approached Kinshasa, the plane began to shake. Not violently, but enough to silence casual conversation. The kind of turbulence that makes you grip the armrest without admitting it.
Rre Mothibamele leaned towards me and, in a quiet voice stripped of official composure, confessed that the turbulence unsettled him. He feared a crash. I remember nodding, pretending calm. Journalists are trained observers but we are also human. My own thoughts were racing. Then came the news that changed everything. A coup was unfolding. Rebel leader Laurent-Desire Kabila had launched his offensive. The airport, our intended refuelling point, was reportedly under military control.
For nearly 30 minutes, our aircraft circled above Kinshasa. Thirty minutes is a short time on paper. In the sky, with limited fuel and no certainty below, it stretches. We did not have enough fuel to comfortably bypass Kinshasa and continue to Johannesburg. Yet landing in a capital city in the middle of a coup carried its own unknowns. Who controlled the runway? Was it secure? Were we safe?
Inside that aircraft, hierarchy dissolved. There was no minister, no journalist, no delegation. Just human beings suspended between two risks - the mathematics of fuel and the unpredictability of armed takeover. I remember looking out the window, searching for reassurance in the city streets below. Instead, there was only the steady hum of engines and the quiet tension of calculation. Eventually, clearance was granted. We descended. The landing felt heavier than usual or perhaps that was my imagination. Unlike our journey to Abidjan where we had a one-hour stopover in Brazzaville and were allowed to disembark, stretch our legs and wait calmly in the terminal as the aircraft refuelled, Kinshasa was altogether different.
There, we were not permitted to step out. We could only walk as far as the aircraft door, peering cautiously onto the tarmac. What we saw was not routine airport activity but soldiers positioned across the airfield, their presence a stark reminder that a coup was unfolding.
The refuelling was done swiftly. There was no lingering, no casual movement, no sense of normal transit. Within minutes, we were airborne again. Only once we were safely airborne again did the cabin exhale.
Yesterday, as we laughed about it on the phone, I realised something. Of all the high-profile events I covered, of all the speeches and state visits, it is that moment, circling above a city in turmoil, that remains vivid.
The public often sees the polished side of journalism: the handshake photographs, the summit communiqués, the proximity to power. They rarely see the uncertainty behind it - the unstable environments, the calculated risks, the thin margins.
Journalism is often romanticised as access. In truth, it is exposure. Exposure to power, yes but also to vulnerability, instability and the unpredictable currents of history. That experience in 1997 did more than frighten us. It reminded me that journalism is not merely about recording events from a safe distance. Sometimes it means being physically present where history shifts, even when the ground or the runway, is uncertain.
As I now write more critically about media ethics and the responsibilities that come with publishing in the digital age, I carry those memories with me. They temper my views. They remind me that behind every headline are human beings navigating real risks, not abstractions. Perhaps that is the paradox of this profession.
One day, you are interacting and photographing Rev. Jesse Jackson. Another day, you are calculating fuel against a coup. Between handshakes and headwinds, between ceremony and uncertainty, lies the real story of journalism - a profession lived not only in conference halls but sometimes in circling skies.
Perhaps that is the enduring lesson of my journey: journalism is lived in the space between glamour and gravity. Between the front row and the turbulence. And sometimes, all it takes is a simple phone call decades later to remind you how thin that line truly was.
*Thomas Thos Nkhoma MISA-Botswana chairperson
Behind the summit photographs and presidential handshakes lies a quieter story of uncertainty, risk and the contradictions of journalism in practice - writes THOMAS THOS NKHOMA*