It is Thursday evening on TV6; Shonda Rhimes, Viola Davis and Peter Nowal are getting away with murder. So too is Desha Rambhajan. The 7pm news anchor, easy on the ear and on the air, announces to her listenership that a Sangre Grande man has been charged with six offences, …
Read More »MEDIA MONITOR: Sermon on the Mount: Suffer the little black boys…
The Guardian’s Jensen La Vende tried very hard to take the emotion out of his lead story in Wednesday’s paper and make it an inoffensive, completely objective news report that wouldn’t mash nobody corn. And the Express’ Michelle Loubon tried no less hard to avoid using the obvious word. But it was …
Read More »MEDIA MONITOR: Who will safeguard the media vs the Guardian? And the CJ vs the Express?
More or less 20%. That is the share of the newspaper market that the Guardian has enjoyed (if that is the right verb) for several years now. It is also the figure that, according to a former Guardian editor of fairly recent vintage, is more than adequate provided that that …
Read More »MEDIA MONITOR: Did Guardian editorial heads play a role in making Baldeosingh’s head roll?
The Guardian’s recent firing of controversial columnist Kelvin Baldeosingh after the publication of a column under his by-line which the Guardian has not, it seems, removed from its online site raises an issue that I think needs urgent ventilation. Some say that it’s really very straightforward; four other columnists have …
Read More »MEDIA MONITOR: Radio and TV in T&T; not voice and vision but vice and division
“You know how many programmes I could buy for $100,000?” The speaker is the programme director at a local television channel. He is responding—with a straight face, I am told—to a suggestion by a group of excited young men smitten with the television bug and naïve—or rash—enough to think that …
Read More »MEDIA MONITOR: Trinidad Express shoots itself in the foot; sister station also hurt
POW! POW! POW! Fans of Chinese food could be forgiven for licking their lips on the morning of Tuesday 4 April. Who really could imagine, before seeing the ‘Three shot dead in Port of Spain’ drop head, that the Express’ front page headline referred not to the steamed or fried …
Read More »Media monitor: Unimpressed by the Express… or the Guardian
I doh have no media tabanca. Some Wired868 readers think I do but I don’t; I swear. I abandoned the conventional media—well, more accurately, the conventional media amputated me—after I had spent four years at the Guardian followed immediately by six at the Express. I have no regrets. There hasn’t been …
Read More »Pen in school, Minister Garcia? Best honours brother who fathered the writer in him
I couldn’t believe my ears. Had the radio just said that the Minister of Education was planning to start instruction in panmanship in the nation’s schools? Had someone finally seen the light after all these years, just as the Lloyd Best Institute of the West Indies was launching a week-long …
Read More »Will and no Grace: Express digs through Seetahal’s estate
The Trinidad Express newspaper and its editor-in-chief Omatie Lyder pushed the boundaries of good taste this morning as the leading daily newspaper made the last will and testament of slain attorney, Dana Seetahal SC, its lead story. And, to be clear, Mr Live Wire means that Lyder pushed “Good Taste” …
Read More »Fixin’ T&T demands fresh T&T general elections
FIXIN’ T&T reiterates its call for the Kamla Persad-Bissessar led People’s Partnership government to immediately seek a fresh mandate from the citizens of Trinidad & Tobago. We welcome the resignation of Mr. Jack Warner from the Cabinet and our Parliament. Mrs. Persad-Bissessar however must not now be allowed to have conveniently …
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