The most defining human achievement of his journalistic career did not centre around the stories he broke, the interrogating interviews he conducted, the live multi-point radio and television programmes he pioneered, not even the linking of the Caricom community in voice and pictures, but rather “the contribution I made to the saving of lives as Abu Bakr faced the reality of the power and the insistence of the army that he and his untrained and ill-equipped men had to surrender (or else) during the failed Muslimeen coup attempt of July 27, 1990, that stands out ahead of all else,” Jones P Madeira, now retired, told me.
“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,” said Jones.
To get the full context—you—the reader, should know that after the invasion and capture of TTT, the army demolished a building on the compound of the station reportedly with the Karl Gustav gun, “which put the fear of whoever into our minds,” says ‘Jones P’, now approaching his 80th birthday in his home town from birth, Arima, the place where his aspirations to be a radio announcer first sprang.
In recognition of his specific efforts during the Abu Bakr-led attack on TTT and his 45-plus years as a leading journalist of radio, television, and newspapers in the Caribbean, Jones was awarded the country’s second highest recognition with the Chaconia Medal Gold medal. Most deserving I wrote then; so too was the honourary PhD given to Jones by the University of Trinidad and Tobago for his work as a leading Caribbean journalist.
Jones has been the quintessential journalist, “Caribbean Man,” having worked in electronic and print media across the region and being centrally involved in the creation of media products, including Caribscope and Caribvision, television news, and current affairs programmes that linked the region daily back in the 1980s and 1990s.
To do so, Jones worked with Michael Arbends, a German television producer, with the Friedrick Ebert Stiftung Foundation, which sponsored the development of the programmes and training for TTT journalists.
In addition to those productions, Jones pioneered live and produced programmes of Caricom and Commonwealth summits in the region and across the world.
Jones, in his career, was News and Current Affairs Director at TTT in the 1980s and 1990s and in a similar position at Radio Trinidad. He worked in the Caribbean Broadcasting Union and also functioned at the Caricom Secretariat in Georgetown, Guyana, where he instituted radio links across the region.
I consider him the foremost regional broadcaster of our time.
His formal news reporting career started as a little-recognised and lowly-paid freelancer with the Trinidad Guardian; his “beat” was at the Piarco Airport in the early 1960s.
“I got the story of my stint at the airport when the media-wise British Guiana politician, Dr Cheddi Jagan, passed through Piarco on his way to Russia in the then Soviet Union,” recounts Jones. For a junior reporter with a not-too-active beat, getting an interview with Dr Jagan, one of the most articulate and committed West Indian leaders of the period, in his role as Leader of the Opposition and the People’s Progressive Party in British Guiana, was a main catch.
“It turned out to be a big story for me,” says Jones, now retired from his journalistic career.
From that very low-key stringer beat at the airport, Jones P rose a few decades later to the position of News and Current Affairs Director at TTT to again feature Dr Jagan, who had also had a significant rise to be President of Guyana and one of the representative Caricom leaders at a major regional conference in Port-of-Spain (circa late 1980s) initiated by T&T’s Prime Minister ANR Robinson, and one in which the colourful Jamaican Prime Minister, Michael Manley, also participated.
Jones headed the team of broadcast journalists who reported on the conference from various points and with a live panel discussion on the merits of Caricom leaders making yet another effort to bring the people and countries of the region together under the Caribbean Community umbrella.
It was a long way from his scrambling a story here and there about news-making individuals entering and leaving the country.
‘An innovative broadcaster equalled by no one’
Jones and his siblings were born and grew up in very humble—the word used—but in fact in very straightened, even desperate circumstances with a mother and visiting father, who incidentally was a Duke from Tobago. JP is often teased about his familial relationship to a famous Duke of Tobago politician and Trinidad trade unionism.
“I was first attracted not to hard-news media, in which I eventually spent the largest and most significant part of my career, but my first efforts were in popular music programmes on the triangular Rediffusion box nailed to the wall of homes,” he explains.
At Radio Trinidad, Jones encountered a few of the big names of radio in the 1950s and 1960s: Ken Gordon, June Gonzalves, Peter Minshall, Trevor Mc Donald, Bob Gittens, and the then “Bad Lad” of Radio, the “eene meeny miny mo” character that was the “Bad Lad”, Billy Reece. It was quite an environment in which a youngster aspiring to high standards of broadcasting was apprenticed.
Jones also featured in Sateen Session on television, exposing the lifestyles and music of the young, and he did so in the company of “Big Brother,” Dave Elcock. The two were destined decades later to work together at 610 Radio and Radio Trinidad when Jones took control of news and programming.
One of the high points of Jones’ work as a then senior journalist (circa 1970s) was as a member of the team of distinguished broadcast journalists, including, Leon De Leon, Alfred Aguiton, Raoul Pantin, Ashton Chambers, Dick Henderson, Clyde “Jimmy” Maynard and others on the programme, “News Makers” a production which featured the issues and stories of the day and the newsmakers behind them.
Jones also benefitted significantly from his two-year-long stint in London at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Caribbean Service.
He brought home advanced production techniques and journalistic skills which he was exposed to at the world’s number one radio station.
As an innovative broadcaster equalled by no one I have experienced before, the coverage of the sittings of Parliament was live on radio and television, Jones sent journalists Carlyle Hinkson and Dominic Kalipersad to interview parliamentarians as they emerged from the sittings to give viewers a feel of what transpired in the law-making body.
He later hired the experienced and formidable political journalist, Raoul Pantin, when the cameras were allowed in the chamber, to report with voice and pictures from the Parliament.
‘He created space and
opportunity for young reporters’
While Jones P did a large chunk of his work in radio and television, he was also Editor-in-Chief of the Trinidad Guardian and his last active stint in media was in a similar position at the Newsday.
When he stepped out from day-to-day journalistic work for a period, Jones as Manager of Communications at the Caribbean Epidemiological Centre (Carec) brought knowledge, training and sensitivity to reporters around the region in their coverage of HIV and Aids. His efforts were critical to making reporters/journalists aware of the virus and disease and to avoid stigmatising those who were infected as the reporters hunted for stories in an environment of ignorance of the virus and disease.
He informed the reporters of the importance of concentrating on assisting people everywhere in the Caribbean to understand how the virus was spread and to treat with humanity, people living with HIV and Aids.
The outreach was also directed at those who had the virus and disease and to educate them to avoid infecting others and that there existed medication which had quite a measure of success in keeping them healthy and extending their lives. For the years at Carec, Jones organised World AIDS Day conferences and radio and television programmes in the region.
He covered the HIV and Aids conferences in North America including at the United Nations General Assembly sessions and organised several in the Caribbean. I learnt much from an assignment Jones sent that recommended me to research and write a couple of booklets on how the virus and disease were being treated in Zimbabwe, then the population with the highest rate of HIV and Aids amongst those sexually active.
And that indeed was one of the strengths of Jones, he created space and opportunity for young reporters to find themselves and develop their capacity.
It was Jones who was the major producer of The Issues Live, the TTT current affairs discussion programme.
Likewise, at Radio Trinidad, Jones developed several entertainment and current affairs programmes with then Managing Director Neil Giuseppi.
In another position as a public communicator, Jones P Madeira took on the responsibility of Court Protocol and Information Manager of the Judiciary, led by present Chief Justice Ivor Archie. There he delivered on a number of communications items to the public on the work of the Judiciary.
A major achievement of Jones P Madeira as News and Current Affairs Director of TTT and at Radio Trinidad was to produce and participate in live coverage of the political campaigns of political parties contesting in general elections.
He not only took the cameras live to the events but had a panel of political commentators with a moderator to analyse and where necessary be critical of statements being made on the party’s political platforms.
Amongst the commentators used on the programmes were the likes of John La Guerre, Selwyn Ryan, Lloyd Best, Dennis Pantin and a number of others. It was the era (1980s) before big money entered the campaigns, and allowed the parties to buy the time and say what they wished without immediate analysis to sift truth from falsehood.
Jones also sent TTT journalists to several Caricom and Commonwealth Summits in the region and venues outside the region, a demonstration of his understanding of the regional integration movement and the need for audiences to appreciate the objectives.
Just to demonstrate the measure of the journalist that Jones has been and his fairness notwithstanding political pressures which have today overwhelmed the national stations—radio and television, he organised live coverage of a conference of the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha during the period when the PNM Government was in power and even though the two institutions were politically miles apart.
If he got flak for being objective to allow state-owned broadcast facilities to cover what was said to be an institution opposed to the Government; he must have shrugged it off.
He surely did the same when governments in power sought to claim control over the state-owned TTT.
I was present on one occasion when the then minister of state, Ronnie Williams, whose language was colourful, to say the least, slammed into an immovable Jones for his determination to cover news-making events held by the Opposition.
He was tried and tested at the Trinidad Guardian by PM Basdeo Panday who engaged in a stinging and vicious tirade against Jones for an editorial the paper carried which was critical of him.
The episode led eventually to a number of reporters leaving the Guardian with Jones P resigning as the newspaper management thought it better not to antagonise Prime Minister Panday.
As he approaches his 80th birthday with serious health challenges, it’s an opportunity to reflect on his career and to say thanks to his wife, Melba–a woman of abiding faith and commitment, and their children, Melanie, Lorilee, and Justin for making him accessible to the nation and the Caribbean.
All the best, Jones P.
