When having to spend the night in the newsroom felt safer than driving home

The first time I spent the night in the newsroom, it was not out of fear, but ambition. It was in 2005. I was a young business writer, hungry to prove myself in a busy newsroom that produced three business pullouts weekly, namely BusinessWeek, Maritime Guide, and Property Guide.

Those days, missing a deadline meant someone else would fill the gap, rendering you irrelevant.

Without ChatGPT, writing was a craft preserved for a stubborn few who were capable of sharpening their skills sentence by sentence.

Seeing your byline after an editor had gone through your copy was something every scribe craved for.

Fast-forward to 2011, I found myself spending the night in the office again while editing a 40-page supplement for the first Tanzania Top 100 Mid-Sized Companies Awards.

There was no overtime allowance for the effort, no special recognition except a letter of appreciation from the then managing editor, Bakari Machumu.

But complaining never crossed our minds. We worked long hours not because we were forced to, but because journalism was a calling, not a job. It was a profession where passion and duty often counted more than rest.

Then came Wednesday, October 29, 2025. I spent the night in the newsroom again but this time, not out of passion or professional pressure. This time, it was safer to stay indoors than attempt to drive home.

The day began innocently enough. Tanzanians turned up at polling stations early, determined to cast their votes peacefully. There was a palpable sense of calm, convincing you that everything will remain orderly.

I visited a polling station as usual, exchanged pleasantries with colleagues on the ground and later drove towards the office to coordinate coverage.

Then came the call. A trusted friend from Chanika, her voice heavy with urgency, told me to turn back and go home immediately.

“They are approaching (Mabibo) External (a suburb in Dar es Salaam). Soon they will be near your office. Leave now. Please. You will thank me later,” she insisted.

I hesitated. Journalists often witness events long before the public reads about them. And editors, by nature, do not abandon their desks when reporters are scattered across the city gathering news.

The instinct to stay was stronger than the instinct to flee. Yet instinct also told me to take off my media coat and remove my accreditation badge. That simple act felt like shedding armour in unfamiliar territory. It was necessary but unsettling.

Within minutes, signs of tension surfaced. A motorist stopped abruptly at the Mwananchi bus stop near the railway crossing, motioning other drivers to turn back. Some did. Others hesitated. Moments later, a daladala stopped and passengers spilled out, confusion etched on their faces.

Then came two police vehicles, loaded with Field Force Unit officers moving with urgency and intent. Shots fired into the air. Panic spread. A man dropped tyres on the road. Another splashed liquid. Fire erupted.

It all happened in seconds. A blur of smoke, shouting, burning rubber and the sharp crack of live ammunition. The police post was set ablaze. A fuel station suffered damage. The road was blocked. People ran. Others froze.

It was chaos without warning, violence without form and danger without clear direction. You could not tell who was a protester, who was a bystander, or who was simply caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Inside the building, the atmosphere shifted from newsroom focus to survival instinct. Doors were shut. Phones buzzed with alerts.

And when the Inspector General of Police declared a curfew later in the day, the decision was made for us: home would have to wait.

Some colleagues called their families to reassure them. Others quietly accepted the night ahead.

Chairs became beds. Office jackets doubled as blankets. And as mosquitoes staged their own midnight conference around our ears, one thing became painfully clear: journalism, for all its glamour on the outside, sometimes demands that you simply endure.

People often assume journalists exist only behind keyboards, on television screens, or standing beside cameras. But sometimes we are trapped in the very stories we cover. Sometimes we face the same uncertainty as the public we serve, with no luxury of retreat.

That night in 2025 reminded me of a truth we rarely voice: journalism is not always about chasing deadlines, earning bylines, or out-writing your peers. Sometimes it is about staying alive long enough to tell the story. I have told mine and will keep telling.

Samuel Tindwa is the News Editor of  The Citizen