Michelle Loubon

Vet­er­an jour­nal­ist and pres­i­dent of the As­so­ci­a­tion of Caribbean Me­dia Work­ers Wes­ley Gib­bings said it is im­por­tant for me­dia prac­ti­tion­ers work­ing in a democ­ra­cy like T&T to de­vel­op a "jour­nal­is­tic eye." He made this com­ment at the clos­ing cer­e­mo­ny for the in­terns in the Young Jour­nal­ist Press Pass Com­pe­ti­tion at the Trinidad Guardian board­room, 22 St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain, on Wednes­day. Among them were War­ren Willock, Tyler An­drews, Joshua Charles, Leah Lewis, Nneka Richards, Alana Bassie and "birth­day girl" Dawn Ros­ales.

Gib­bings had con­duct­ed the train­ing ses­sions in which he re­mind­ed jour­nal­ists of their sa­cred thrust to ad­vo­cate "for free­dom of thought, ex­pres­sion and free­dom of the press." He said: "As jour­nal­ists in a democ­ra­cy, we are de­mand­ing spe­cial rights and priv­i­leges. We need to pro­vide peo­ple with the truth. "You have to bring a 'jour­nal­is­tic eye' to the sit­u­a­tion. Peo­ple may spend years search­ing for that 'jour­nal­is­tic eye.'" La­belling jour­nal­ists as "watch­dogs," Gib­bings added: "You must not have tails wag­ging but ears erect. You must be pre­pared to be heard. Oth­er­wise, it would be noth­ing more than the same mes­sage you hear on the ra­dio."

Gib­bings laud­ed the stu­dents for "be­ing such a bright group, while pos­sess­ing good gram­mar skills." Dou­glas Wil­son, Guardian Me­dia Ltd's gen­er­al man­ag­er (print), adopt­ed the slo­gan: "No press: no democ­ra­cy." He got them think­ing crit­i­cal­ly when he told them "there are ques­tions about where the In­ter­net is tak­ing us." Among those present were TSTT's head of cor­po­rate and com­mu­ni­ty af­fairs Trudy de Ver­teuil, Guardian Me­dia Ltd's gen­er­al man­ag­er (mar­ket­ing) Cyn­tra Achong and Nicole Bachan, mar­ket­ing co-or­di­na­tor. De Ver­teuil ad­vised them to "stay hum­ble and de­vel­op an at­ti­tude of grat­i­tude."

Achong said: "You are our bright, shin­ing stars. We plant­ed a seed in the ground which says we are go­ing to pro­duce fruits." Achong told them Gib­bings would over­see the first GIE edi­tion which would fea­ture their es­says and sto­ries. Be­fore the pre­sen­ta­tion of the cer­tifi­cates, each speak­er al­so wished them best in their re­spec­tive ca­reers–whether it be as cus­to­di­ans of the fourth es­tate or an­oth­er field of en­deav­our. In­tern Alexan­der John­son gave a vote of thanks on be­half of cor­po­rate spon­sor, TSTT, Guardian Me­dia Ltd and me­dia prac­ti­tion­ers who had giv­en them the gold­en op­por­tu­ni­ty to pen­e­trate the dy­nam­ic world of jour­nal­ism.