By Prudence Minayo
Isabella Kituri is a Kenyan media personality. She has worked in the media industry as a journalist/news anchor for 18 years . The anchor is proficient and has delivered news for years with such eloquence and brilliance without counting controversies as is the norm with her peers.
She has a charming personality and always has a jovial smile for viewers. Her command of the Swahili language is superb and over the years she has amassed a good number of followers. The journalist has been through one of the biggest heartbreaks in life but managed to face it with bravery and overcame it.
Family
Isabella was born and raised in the coastal region of Kenya and hails from the Taita community. She is the first born in a family of five children. The second born resides in Canada, the third is a banker, the fourth and fifth born are in the hotel business.
Their mother is a teacher by profession and their father a reverend. They were raised to be upright members of society with their parents being disciplinarians. Unlike most media personalities who post their families on social media platforms every other day, Isabella does not. She prefers to keep them out of the limelight.
Education
She attended Star of the Sea primary school, then Bura Girls before moving to join Kenya Institute of Mass Communication (KIMC) to pursue a media related course.
After leaving Kenya Institute of Mass Communication, she moved to the United States International University (USIU) to pursue further studies.
Career
The media industry in Kenya is not an easy one to break through. There are thousands of people with a passion for the media world, but only few manage to break through. Others through connections while others through hard work and patience.
Isabella Kituri got on through determination. All she wanted to become was a journalist. People would tell her she has a good voice and this would further encourage her to pursue a career in the media industry.
At first, she would stay outside the building that hosts Kenya Television Network after school with the hopes that one day she would work for the station. After one year, she was outside the building when the station’s head met her and took her inside. This was the beginning of her journey working under the Standard Media Group. She worked for KTN as a Swahili news anchor. She then left KTN for Mediamax owned station K24. After working in K24 for quite some time, she was shown the doors with other journalists due to the turbulence brought about by Covid-19 outbreak.
In an interview with Massawe Japanni, she revealed that her greatest accomplishments in the media industry were sticking to the journalism ethics, talking about gender balance and fighting for the rights of women and children.
The mother of two would definitely want to continue with her media journey even if it is not on television. After all, there are so many other platforms like YouTube, that are proving effective for media personalities today.
She has also stated that she would like to pursue politics in the future. She wishes to work as a women representative back in her home area in Taita. This is because she would love to help the people in her area.
Marriage
The former K24 news anchor lost her first husband while she was 25-years-old. He died from colon cancer soon after their son had turned three months old. Getting over it was not easy, especially since she had to return to work two months later. Farida Karoney, who was her boss back then, encouraged her to go back to work since staying at home and thinking about it was not the solution.
She found love again after 14 years of being a widow and is currently married and blessed with a second child who is a girl. Isabelle still uses her late husband name to protect her brand as she shared on Radio Jambo.
