Jones P Madeira, a for­mer ed­i­tor-in-chief at the T&T Guardian who dis­tin­guished him­self in print, ra­dio and tele­vi­sion jour­nal­ism dur­ing his 45-year ca­reer, died on Fri­day at age 80. He had been ail­ing for some time.

Madeira be­came known for his in­sight­ful cov­er­age of ma­jor lo­cal and re­gion­al events but al­so made sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to the de­vel­op­ment of re­gion­al jour­nal­ism, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the sphere of broad­cast­ing.

In the 1970s, while serv­ing as an ad­vis­er in Me­dia Re­la­tions and Pub­lic In­for­ma­tion at the Cari­com Sec­re­tari­at, he was part of a team that ad­vanced the de­vel­op­ment of the Caribbean News Agency (CANA) and the Caribbean Broad­cast­ing Union (CBU), ex­pand­ing co­op­er­a­tion among elec­tron­ic me­dia hous­es in the Caribbean in the ar­eas of pro­gramme pro­duc­tion and ex­changes, en­gi­neer­ing and broad­cast train­ing. 

Madeira al­so served as the first full-time sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the CBU from 1981 to 1982.

How­ev­er, one of his many defin­ing mo­ments came dur­ing the failed Mus­limeen coup at­tempt of Ju­ly 27, 1990.

Then the head of News and Cur­rent Af­fairs of Trinidad and To­ba­go Tele­vi­sion (TTT), Madeira was among the hostages held at the tele­vi­sion sta­tion. Dur­ing those five days and six nights, he had to broad­cast un­der duress. 

Re­count­ing that trau­mat­ic ex­pe­ri­ence sev­er­al years lat­er, he re­vealed, “In­side the build­ing as a hostage, I worked with my col­league at 610 Ra­dio Hamil­ton Clement who was out­side and I on the in­side of Trinidad and To­ba­go Tele­vi­sion (TTT) to es­tab­lish a link be­tween Abu Bakr and Head of the De­fence Force Colonel Joe Theodore to talk rather than re­sort to vi­o­lence, which could have re­sult­ed in the deaths of many in­side the build­ing at Mar­aval Road.”

In recog­ni­tion of his hero­ic ef­forts dur­ing the at­tack on TTT and his decades as a lead­ing jour­nal­ist, Madeira was award­ed the coun­try’s sec­ond high­est award, the Cha­co­nia Medal Gold.

He al­so cov­ered the Black Pow­er up­ris­ing and state of emer­gency in 1970 as a spe­cial events an­nounc­er/re­porter with NBS Ra­dio 610.

It was just one of many pro­fes­sion­al high­lights for Ari­ma-born Madeira, who start­ed his ca­reer at the Voice of Red­if­fu­sion, a wired ra­dio chan­nel of the Trinidad Broad­cast­ing Com­pa­ny, which al­so op­er­at­ed the Ra­dio Trinidad sta­tion.

At Ra­dio Trinidad, he worked along­side sev­er­al broad­cast­ing vet­er­ans of the 1950s and 1960s, in­clud­ing Ken Gor­don, June Gon­za­lves, Pe­ter Min­shall, Trevor Mc Don­ald, Bob Git­tens, and the “Bad Lad”, Bil­ly Re­ece.

Madeira’s first full-time job was as a re­porter with the T&T Guardian be­fore he re­turned to broad­cast­ing as a news ed­i­tor/re­porter with state-owned Na­tion­al Broad­cast­ing Ser­vice (NBS). From there he re­ceived a fel­low­ship and be­came a pro­duc­er with the Over­seas Re­gion­al Ser­vices of the BBC in Lon­don.

On his re­turn to T&T, Madeira re-joined NBS as se­nior pro­duc­er of news and cur­rent af­fairs.

He did a short stint in the state sec­tor, be­fore tak­ing up the ap­point­ment at TTT.

Lat­er, as ed­i­tor-in-chief of the T&T Guardian, Madeira had what he lat­er de­scribed as the worst ex­pe­ri­ence in his pro­fes­sion­al life. It was a No­vem­ber 1995 en­counter with then prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day who, up­set over an ed­i­to­r­i­al in the news­pa­per, called him a “vi­cious spite­ful racist.” 

It was a time of tense re­la­tions be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and me­dia hous­es over free­dom of the press.

Madeira re­signed his po­si­tion at the Guardian along with the ma­jor­i­ty of the news­pa­per’s se­nior ed­i­to­r­i­al team, and they went on to es­tab­lish the now-de­funct news­pa­per, the In­de­pen­dent.

For sev­er­al years, Madeira func­tioned as a com­mu­ni­ca­tion pro­fes­sion­al, first as an in­for­ma­tion ad­vis­er at the Caribbean Epi­demi­ol­o­gy Cen­tre (CAREC), be­fore mov­ing on to the po­si­tion of man­ag­er/ad­vis­er of the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Unit at the Min­istry of Health, then Court Pro­to­col and In­for­ma­tion Man­ag­er of the Ju­di­cia­ry.

He re­turned to the print me­dia in 2014 as ed­i­tor-in-chief at News­day, a po­si­tion he held un­til his re­tire­ment in 2018.

For his role in the de­vel­op­ment of broad­cast­ing in the re­gion, Madeira was in­duct­ed in­to the CBU Caribbean Me­dia Hall of Fame in 2000.

He is sur­vived by his wife, Mel­ba, and their chil­dren, Melanie, Lo­rilee, and Justin.