Negussie Mengesha

Negussie Mengesha comes from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where he started his journalism career in 1964 as news writer and reporter in the Voice of the Gospel, a radio station run by the World Lutheran Federation. He also used to be news anchor on the Ethiopian Television. In 1967, he won a scholarship and went to Cologne, West Germany where he studied journalism and political science at the Albertus Magnus University of Cologne. He also got a practical training in radio and TV journalism in the West German Broadcasting Cooperation (WDR), the largest German Radio and TV network.

Negussie worked in Deutche Welle (Voice of Germany) as an editor and broadcaster and later as the chief of the Amharic Service, a popular and widely listened program that was a major source of objective and balanced information in mid 1970s when Emperor Haile Seleassie ‘s semi feudal rule was overthrown by a popular up rising.
In 1977, he headed back to his native country to serve his people and promote the principle of free media. His dream didn’t last long when he was forced to flee his country. He lived over a year in the Sudan focusing and writing on the civil conflict in Ethiopia, the devastating famine catastrophe and the plight of Ethiopian refugees.

In 1981, Negussie immigrated to the United States and joined VOA in August of 1982 as a Senior Editor for the newly launched Amharic program targeted to Ethiopia, a country that was under the Soviet domination and a military dictatorship. He was one of the first staffer who played a key role in formulating and designing the program and training the new employees.

From 1986 to 1996, he was the Chief of the Amharic service. A former refugee himself, Negussie traveled several times to Sudan in the 1980s and made extensive coverage enhanced with sound and actualities about the lives of the Ethiopian and Eritrean refugees, the hardships they endured.

In 1984/85, he witnessed and reported when hundreds died from hunger, malaria, typhoid and other diseases. His program gave voice for the voiceless.
He also covered the peace negotiation between the former Ethiopian government and the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) mediated by President Jimmy carter in Nairobi, Kenya. Using his pen name Getahun Tamerat, he interviewed several Head of states and key political figures from the Horn region, including President Carter, President Buyoya of Burundi, President Issais Afeworki of Eritrea, the spiritual leader of Sudan, Hassan Turabi.

Using his pen name Getaun Tamerat, he produced the most popular program between the listenership in the target area and a bi-weekly panel discussion for the first time involving political leaders and key figures in substantive political discourse.
In 1985, Negussie was one of the first journalists who discovered and reported secretly organized massive transportation of Ethiopian Jews through Sudan to Israel. In 1989, he went to Israel and spent one week with the Ethiopian Jews, assessing their lives and adjustment in their new home and producing series of programs.
In 1996, Negussie started the USAID funded Central Africa Service, today one of the most successful services in VOA. Since December 2000, he is the Program Manager for the Africa Division. His responsibility covers nine Services broadcasting in 14 languages to the entire sub-Saharan countries of Africa, with a total audience of 49 million people.

In 2003, he helped start a new service in English, Shona and Endebele targeted to Zimbabwe where a dictatorial Mugabe government is controlling all media outlets, thus denying the free flow on information to its people.

In February of 2007, he again played a key role in crafting, designing and starting a new Somali radio program at the VOA, targeted to a war torn country of Somali and the rest of the Horn region.

Negussie has three children: Nengis, MBA graduate student at Kellogg Business School, Northwestern University Chicago, Tesfaye, a graduate student at School of Journalism, Colombia University, New York and Yamrot, a winner of the Banneker/Key Scholarship award, Sophomore, attending Honors program at the University of Maryland, College Park. Tesfaye and Yamrot are born in the USA.