The Caribbean me­dia land­scape is mourn­ing the death of Jones P Madeira, a leg­endary jour­nal­ist, broad­cast­er, and me­dia pi­o­neer.

Madeira died on Fri­day at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex. He was 80 years old.

The Caribbean Broad­cast­ing Union (CBU), where Madeira served as its first full-time Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al from 1981 to 1982, ex­pressed pro­found sor­row over his pass­ing. In 2000, Madeira was in­duct­ed in­to the CBU Hall of Fame for his ex­cep­tion­al con­tri­bu­tions to re­gion­al me­dia. His Hall of Fame ci­ta­tion praised him for his “lead­er­ship by ex­am­ple, courage and grace un­der fire, and per­son­al sac­ri­fices in the cause of jour­nal­is­tic in­tegri­ty.”

Madeira’s il­lus­tri­ous ca­reer spanned over five decades, shap­ing the broad­cast and print me­dia across Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Caribbean. A British Broad­cast­ing Cor­po­ra­tion (BBC)-trained jour­nal­ist, he is per­haps best re­mem­bered for his brav­ery and com­po­sure dur­ing the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Held hostage at the na­tion­al tele­vi­sion sta­tion, TTT, Madeira be­came the voice of re­as­sur­ance for a na­tion in cri­sis, de­liv­er­ing crit­i­cal in­for­ma­tion even as he faced threats to his life.

The CBU de­scribed his ac­tions dur­ing the coup as “calm­ing the coun­try” and earn­ing “the grudg­ing re­spect of his cap­tors.”

CBU pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Greene high­light­ed Madeira’s last­ing in­flu­ence on re­gion­al me­dia, not­ing that his ini­tia­tives dur­ing his tenure con­tin­ue to im­pact ra­dio and tele­vi­sion pro­gram­ming decades lat­er.

Jour­nal­ist Wes­ley Gib­bings un­der­scored Madeira’s im­por­tance to the re­gion’s me­dia his­to­ry, de­scrib­ing him as a “gi­ant in our midst.” Gib­bings, who worked along­side Madeira in both print and broad­cast me­dia, cred­it­ed him with in­spir­ing gen­er­a­tions of jour­nal­ists and strength­en­ing the Caribbean Broad­cast­ing Union.

For­mer col­league Ash­ford Jack­man shared a heart­felt trib­ute, call­ing Madeira a “true leader” who in­spired and en­cour­aged ex­cel­lence in jour­nal­ism. Jack­man re­count­ed Madeira’s ef­forts dur­ing the 1990 coup, work­ing tire­less­ly to se­cure the safe­ty of his col­leagues. Jack­man al­so re­flect­ed on Madeira’s men­tor­ship, not­ing his pa­tience, calm de­meanour, and ded­i­ca­tion to fos­ter­ing tal­ent.

“For me, Jones epit­o­mised every­thing that was good in the world of jour­nal­ism. A great leader has passed on,” he said.

San­dra Ma­haraj, who worked with Madeira at the Trinidad Broad­cast­ing Com­pa­ny in 1991, re­mem­bered him as a “gen­tle­man” and “fa­ther fig­ure” who up­held high jour­nal­is­tic stan­dards while pro­vid­ing per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al guid­ance.

Madeira’s lega­cy is al­so marked by his en­dur­ing com­mit­ment to pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion man­age­ment and his piv­otal role in shap­ing the CBU Me­dia Hall of Fame. From 2017 to 2020, he served on the pan­el for the Hall of Fame Award, con­tin­u­ing his ded­i­ca­tion to ex­cel­lence in me­dia. He is sur­vived by his wife, Mel­ba, three chil­dren, and grand­chil­dren.