Having worked with Choko for the last five years of his journalistic career, I felt obliged to make a few comments on what I read coming out of the Choko lecture last week, since I was unavailable to attend.
The question unanswered was whether Choko left a good or bad legacy even as it is admitted that his style is alive and well in T&T. The only answer to whether his open, bold and in-your-face journalism was a force of good should also be viewed in the context with his psyche and not coming from people who see him as an opponent, competitor or his equal.
Those who knew him well saw a scrupulous, principled, conscientious, noble man with a deep sense of right and wrong. He was the great equaliser but lenient when it was called for.
The style pioneered by him locally is alive and well in almost every nook and cranny throughout the world, but he gave us that unique T&T style so long ago. This open, forthright style worked to keep the then government in check, but conversely it was known by those close to him that even PM Eric Williams would leak stories to him because of his respect for Choko.He was a firm believer in the respect for authority but balanced that with the public right to know when they screwed up big time.
Lennox Grant, who gave a talk on Chookolingo, also missed the point with his lecture entitled "A good story is a good story" when he said that "Choko is credited with inadvertently consolidating the PNM base with his 1956 headline called: Tiger in the Bushes" which caused the consolidation of the black vote to the benefit of the PNM.
Grant should know that Choko's motto was to carry the story no matter the outcome. He never looked at the politics of the story like so many other journalists, pseudo journalists and public relations agents posing as journalists with their agendas. He was a believer in the saying "let the chips fall where they may" regardless of the consequences.
His direct legacy is the vibrant people he taught the journalistic ropes to that survived him to carry on the job of keeping a nation informed... and "not to follow a straight white line."To quote Thomas Jefferson (third US president) on the subject, he said that "were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."
Daniel Chookolingo