(CNN) Wa Lone, one of the two Reuters journalists sentenced to seven years prison in Myanmar on Monday for their reporting on the Rohingya crisis, knew what it was like to be poor.

He grew up in a small village of around 100 households north of Mandalay, one of a family of five children. His parents were rice farmers and there was little money to go around, according to Reuters. His mother died of cancer when he was a child.

Wa Lone is escorted out of court by police on Monday.

Wa Lone developed a hunger for news at an early age, huddled round the one television of the village.

"Sometimes he would play at being an anchor," his younger brother Thura Aung told Reuters late last year. "He always said he wanted to be a reporter in the future."

Wa Lone finished school, but lack of funds meant he had to drop out of technical college at 16.

Read More