We have been asked to announce the death of cricket reportage. In this post-Tony-Cozier age of e-literacy when T20 has shifted the focus squarely onto entertainment, its final passing, long in coming, will probably go largely unremarked and certainly unlamented. The only ones crying will be those media owners who …
Read More »Suzanne Mills: Has Newsday’s ghastly crime coverage—pioneered by my mom—helped or hindered fight against crime?
“At around 2 or 3pm, the commencement of crunch time, some editor, perhaps even I, would stick our heads out of our offices and ask, ‘No murders yet?’ […] As the murder toll rose, I asked Therese [Mills], ‘What’s the point of these crime front pages? We’re not making a sliver …
Read More »Anaphora, cataphora and grammatical euphoria; Scotty Ranking steps up for Media Monitor duty
I was born in the mid-70s, the period claimed by both Generation X and Generation Y. Perhaps that is what created within me that enigmatic mix of new world tastes and old world styles. Most people who know me will say that, when it comes to grammar, I’m definitely old …
Read More »Media Monitor: “Disgrantle” resident and “prioritarise-ing” minister star in messy flood coverage
The one thing that disaster should never be is haha funny. Regrettably, nobody bothered to tell TV6. Or sister OCM station i95.5fm. On yesterday’s 7pm TV news, there was this guy from Greenvale fuming about the inadequacy of the $15,000 grant that Government has offered certified victims of last weekend’s …
Read More »Media Monitor: Pitchoil on WI embers (Pt 2); Holder on high horse as Windies walloped again
Unlike his top batsmen, West Indies cricket captain Jason Holder appears to be quite upbeat; he’s feeling pretty good about himself, it seems. Not without reason, it has to be said. Tuesday’s Trinidad Express reports on Page 59 that he is “into bowlers’ top 10, third among all-rounders.” And twinned with …
Read More »Media Monitor: Indian press pours pitchoil on West Indies embers; Express fans the flames
Current West Indies captain Jason Holder was back in the headlines on Monday—not for the first time, for the wrong reasons! “Not Enough” the Express declared on its back page, with a strap saying “Holder blames the obvious as WI succumb in three days again.” Holder, cricket followers will remember, …
Read More »Media Monitor: Does moving T’dad Express editorial finger find sport nothing to write home about?
Yesterday’s Express leader, headlined “Victory for all,” purports to be a celebration of the recapture of the CPL title by the Trinbago Knight Riders on Sunday evening. However, if editorials can be viewed as the equivalent of Test matches, I submit, then this one was a T20-type effort, a brief, …
Read More »Media Monitor: Twelve hard questions for TKR captain DJ Bravo—with Best answers
The Wired868 management felt that, in the run-up to Trinbago Knight Riders’ second qualifier against Chris Gayle’s St Kitts and Nevis Patriots, it would be a good idea to actually get inside the head of TKR captain Dwayne Bravo. But old habits die hard. I was busy, time was short …
Read More »Media Monitor: Reporting quality the genesis of enduring WI woes? Writers needed to right cricket ship
Asked to name his best-ever West Indies squad, Lloyd Best named as his very first selectee the dean of West Indian cricket writers, Tony Cozier. This was in the late 1990s; we did not yet know that, like the Israelites in the Old Testament, we West Indians would be condemned …
Read More »Media Monitor: Best reviews PNM government’s continuing “communication” challenges…
Meaning, every competent Communications person knows, is made at the receiving end; whatever the message you intend to send, there is no guarantee that that is the message that will be received by those in whose garden the despatched message happens to fall. Whether or not it bears fruit at …
Read More »Media Monitor: NIF, NoF, Nuff; can Government really bank on OCM?
If you watched the TV6 7pm News on Thursday, then you should have a clear idea of how deep in the doodoo our media are. And since One Caribbean Media (OCM) is one of the five companies on whose entire or partial assets the National Investment Fund is “collateralised”—not my …
Read More »Media Monitor: The problem with the T&T media’s World Cup coverage; aite!
The Trinidad Express probably thinks that the World Cup craze is so all-pervasive that they don’t need to bother too much about the rest of the paper. Here is a sentence from last Friday’s Editorial, headlined “Facts the antidote to fake news:” “Evidently hot under the collar, he—the reference was …
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