CHARLES KONG SOO

To­day marks the 101st an­niver­sary of the T&T Guardian. The Grand Old La­dy of St Vin­cent Street has an il­lus­tri­ous past with much to cel­e­brate and a bright fu­ture to look for­ward to in the dig­i­tal age.

To­mor­row Guardian Me­dia will be re­launch­ing its web­site and dig­i­tal Guardian app.

Its founders were al­so hope­ful and con­fi­dent in a brave new world and fu­ture launch­ing a fledg­ling news­pa­per amidst the tur­moil of the First World War. The time had come for cit­i­zens to read about them­selves in a lo­cal news­pa­per when in­de­pen­dence was not yet even a nascent dream.

The T&T Guardian had its share of tri­umphs, tri­als, and ad­ver­si­ties bring­ing the news to cit­i­zens on the many ma­jor and his­toric mo­ments in the coun­try.

The T&T Guardian cov­ered the na­tion's in­de­pen­dence in 1962, it rose phoenix-like from the ash­es of the dev­as­tat­ing fire that de­stroyed its St Vin­cent Street home in 1980, thanks to the de­ter­mined ef­forts of its loy­al staff and the sup­port of its faith­ful read­ers.

When po­et and play­wright Derek Wal­cott passed away on March 17, 2017, I had to source the news­pa­per's archives on the No­bel Lau­re­ate from the Na­tion­al Archives of T&T and Nalis (The Na­tion­al Li­brary and In­for­ma­tion Sys­tem Au­thor­i­ty).

T&T Guardian re­porters, staff, and ed­i­tors pro­duced sto­ries from ground ze­ro of the Ju­ly 27, 1990 coup, slept un­der met­al desks at the news­pa­per and ate corned beef, while bul­lets ric­o­cheted off the build­ing.

The face of the pa­per be­gan to change al­so with the times. From the ex­pats of the 50 and 60s such as Eng­lish ed­i­tors Jack Bark­er and George Jenk­ins, the pa­per lat­er tran­si­tioned to lo­cal ed­i­tors such as Lenn Chong Sing and man­ag­er Ald­wyn Chow. Back then, jour­nal­ists wore suits, banged out their sto­ries on man­u­al type­writ­ers which have been re­placed by com­put­ers, and pho­tog­ra­phers used film cam­eras in­stead of dig­i­tal cam­eras. As­so­ci­at­ed Press wirepho­tos from the 30s have been re­placed with dig­i­tal trans­mis­sion and the bulky cas­sette recorders have giv­en way to dig­i­tal recorders that re­porters now car­ry.

The T&T Guardian has al­ways been at the fore­front of tech­nol­o­gy to give its read­ers the lat­est news 'the fastest with the mostest.'

T&T Guardian's Pro­duc­tion Su­per­vi­sor Rawle Sobers who has 35 years ex­pe­ri­ence in the press room said the pa­per had kept pace with the state-of-the-art print tech­nol­o­gy and em­ploys a Com­put­er-to-plate (CTP) print­ing sys­tem which has led to re­duced pre-press times and im­proved print qual­i­ty over the me­chan­ic Goss print­ing press and Lino­type ma­chine of the past.

As the T&T Guardian en­ters the dig­i­tal age and new so­cial me­dia plat­forms; tech­nol­o­gy and trends will change, but the news­pa­per's strengths will al­ways be its loy­al fam­i­ly of em­ploy­ees and read­ers for the next cen­tu­ry to come.

BOX

Guardian gets to the point with web­site—clean, sim­ple, easy-to-read de­sign

Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor Nicholas Sab­ga said to­mor­row Guardian Me­dia will be re­launch­ing the Trinidad & To­ba­go Guardian Web­site and Dig­i­tal Guardian App.

“These re­launch­es are the per­fect cel­e­bra­tion of our 101st an­niver­sary, which comes a day ear­li­er. For 101 years we've brought you the news­pa­per you've come to know and love, but this year we've em­barked on a mis­sion to do even bet­ter," he said.

“Our new web­site boasts of a clean, sim­ple, easy-to-read de­sign that com­ple­ments our re­cent­ly re­designed pa­per. Our new web pages are ful­ly re­spon­sive for seam­less, im­mer­sive view­ing on your desk­top, mo­bile or tablet.”

He said im­ages and head­lines were easy on the eyes and at a glance, the read­er can keep up with all the lat­est Busi­ness, Life, Sport, and Opin­ion news.

They can al­so ac­cess weath­er up­dates, ex­change rates or lis­ten to any of the group's sev­en ra­dio sta­tions on the new web­site.

Sab­ga said the re­designed Guardian App will be avail­able for down­load on both An­droid and iOS de­vices to­mor­row.

He said if read­ers al­ready had the app in­stalled, they sim­ply need­ed to up­date in their App Store or Google Play Store.

Sab­ga said fea­tures such as clip­ping, down­load­ing for of­fline read­ing, print­ing, book­mark­ing, and shar­ing were now eas­i­er than ever.

He said read­ers can share their favourite ar­ti­cles or pages with friends via email, Face­book, Twit­ter, What­sapp, LinkedIn, Google+, and even Pin­ter­est.

Sab­ga said for desk­top users, the all-new read­er car­ries the built-in abil­i­ty to read ar­ti­cles aloud to the user.

He said fea­tures like these and more have been per­fect­ed for all ages and were sought through the de­sire to pro­vide our read­ers with the best user ex­pe­ri­ence pos­si­ble.

“Get­ting to the point had nev­er looked bet­ter,” Sab­ga said. “We've re­designed with you in mind. Head over to www.guardian.co.tt to­mor­row to see what's new, and down­load the Trinidad Guardian in the App Store and Google play store to take us with you wher­ev­er you go.”