Government ministries, corporations, universities, international organisations and development agencies increasingly employ former journalists as communication specialists, public relations practitioners and strategic advisers. The migration is understandable. Journalism is demanding, often poorly paid and increasingly insecure. Institutional communication frequently offers better salaries, stability and clearer career prospects. No reasonable person should condemn a journalist for seeking a better life.
However, society must confront the consequence of this migration. Who watches power when those trained to watch it increasingly become part of its machinery? The issue is not that former journalists have somehow betrayed journalism by changing careers. It is that journalism loses more than an employee when an experienced reporter walks away. It loses institutional memory, investigative instincts, professional mentorship and the accumulated knowledge of how power operates. That loss matters. A young reporter can learn the mechanics of writing a story relatively quickly. Learning how to recognise when an official explanation does not quite add up takes years. It comes from knowing where to look, which questions to ask, which documents matter and when a seemingly minor inconsistency deserves a second investigation.
