“A La Romain man who was shot and killed on January 10,” CNC3’s Jesse Ramdeo reported just over a month ago, “has died.” You laugh. In spite of yourself. Raucous mid-morning laughter had also filled the Guardian newsroom way back in the 1990s as the word got around. Crime ace …
Read More »Media Monitor—Epilogue: Taking a reading; what do current trends mean for today’s papers?
Two questions demanded an answer last week during the second Donald Trump impeachment proceedings. Fascinated by the phenomenon of fascism’s fight for a firm foothold in what once was democracy’s fortress, few had missed round one last year. This time around, many watched very little, including the final vote. After …
Read More »Media Monitor—Pt 5: The Chacon St collapse; why I don’t read the Newsday
Thackoor Boodram. Remember the name? I do. Not because he is—was—important to me but because journalism is—was—important to me. New Year’s Day, 1 January, 1998. Guess what gift one of the daily papers in Trinidad and Tobago offered on its front page? Why, a man’s head. It had been found …
Read More »Media Monitor—Pt 4: Still sticking it to readers in the time of Covid-19
Remember the OUR OBSCENE TRAGEDY editorial to which the Guardian devoted its front page on Sunday 7 February? The following day, the Express devoted both its front and back pages to continuing outrage and public protests over the most recent killing of a 23-year-old The UWI graduate. And contrary to …
Read More »Media Monitor—Pt 3: Class of 868; taking tired newspaper habits right down to the wire(d)
“Allyuh publishin anything now?” asked a sarcastic commenter on a recent Wired868 story. Wired868’s editor is not the person who spent two years performing autopsies on the two media dinosaurs in Port-of-Spain. But he is nonetheless acutely aware of the adage that enjoins entities to adapt or die. To the …
Read More »Media Monitor 2: An Obscene Farce! St Vincent St, Independence Sq, Memory Lane and and Shit Street
“Nah, sir!” Two words, no more. But I know I heard controlled anger. I know I heard complete disbelief. “You mean you read (she used the present tense) that Sunday Guardian editorial,” she said, her voice almost breaking with the effort not to lose control, “and only see grammatical errors?” …
Read More »Media Monitor: Editor, editor where have you been? To London, not ‘Lester’, to see the queen
If you plan to be a journalist in voice or vision media at the BBC, be prepared to spend a full three months merely learning names. Important people, places, common foreign words and phrases and, of course, commonly mispronounced words like ‘epitome’ and ‘anemone’. One wonders if any such arrangements …
Read More »Media Monitor Mondello Pt-2: Trump’s number comes up; 45 in the books—in the red column!
“Shakespeare, yuh go dead before mih.” If, as children, we happened to say the same words at the same time, my sisters and I used to blurt out those six words. And we used to hear Billy Graham on the radio on Sunday mornings. All four of those sisters eventually …
Read More »Media Monitor: Is Mondello leaving a ‘shithole country’? Or returning to one?
It wasn’t, we knew then, the best of times; it wasn’t, we now know, the worst of times. When, in July 1990, Yasin Abu Bakr opened a door and, in David Rudder’s well-weighted words, showed us our other side, like Adam and Eve, we went frantically in search of a …
Read More »Best: Why a teacher-led classroom is still a locus of a lot of learning
Like the archer’s arrow into the flame cauldron at the Barcelona Olympics, it sailed out into the arena from beneath the old wooden scoreboard at the Queen’s Park Oval. It’s a Shell Shield game. Inshan Ali, the left-arm unorthodox spinner who first made the national team as a teenager, has …
Read More »Media Monitor: Chalkdust’s advice, Fourth Estate allies and education today
Until David Rudder came along to fill our hearts and minds with his inspirational repertoire, Ah Fraid Karl ranked up there with the best. And Ah Put on Mih Guns Again was among my top dozen favourite calypsoes. So having long recognised his worth as a calypsonian, I have no …
Read More »Media Monitor: Chalkdust’s embarrassing offering on education in the age of smart boards and laptops.
Education kills … by degrees! That graffito leapt off the walls of the London Underground at me about half a century ago. And stayed with me. Last weekend’s Sunday Express brought it back to the front of my mind. And reminded me as well of this idea, long espoused by …
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