I can still re­mem­ber when CNC3 start­ed.

At the time, I was the Di­rec­tor of News and Cur­rent Af­fairs at the Caribbean Me­dia Cor­po­ra­tion (CMC), head­quar­tered in Bar­ba­dos, li­ais­ing dai­ly with re­gion­al news­rooms for the pur­pose of shar­ing mul­ti­me­dia con­tent and pro­duc­ing two night­ly half-hour re­gion­al tele­vi­sion news pro­grammes.

Our mantra then was, “On­ly the sun cov­ers the Caribbean bet­ter than we do.” But en­ter­ing the hori­zon was this new and ex­cit­ing Trinidad-based TV sta­tion with some “hot shot” re­porters and pre­sen­ters who were de­ter­mined to be seen — and we couldn’t help but sit up and take no­tice.

At the helm of that news­room was the dy­nam­ic duo of Roger and Rose­mary Sant, who were of­ten the first voic­es we would hear when­ev­er there was break­ing news or a ma­jor event across the re­gion.

Back then, I was busy trav­el­ling the re­gion, and I used to be amazed at their abil­i­ty to track me down wher­ev­er I went. Be it cov­er­ing a re­gion­al elec­tion, a Cari­com sum­mit, or a hur­ri­cane, Roger and Rose­mary were al­ways on the hunt for the big sto­ry and de­ter­mined that no oth­er me­dia house would get the jump on CNC3.

As a re­sult of that en­er­gy and dri­ve, CNC3 quick­ly be­came a house­hold name and a go-to me­dia house for in-depth and qual­i­ty cov­er­age — not on­ly in Trinidad.

At the CMC head­quar­ters in Bridgetown, we start­ed to look for­ward to work­ing not on­ly with Roger and Rose but al­so with the en­tire team, in­clud­ing Samp­son Nan­ton, Shelly Dass, Ot­to Car­ring­ton, and Astil Renn, to name a few, who were among the fa­mil­iar an­chors and re­porters at the time.

When it came to sport, Roger was Mr Re­li­able—al­ways will­ing to help— and CNC3 was the most de­pend­able re­gion­al out­let when it came to col­lab­o­rat­ing with us. In fact, even be­fore join­ing CNC3, Roger had al­ready be­come a fix­ture on the CMC’s re­gion­al Olympics team, cov­er­ing Syd­ney in 2000 and Athens in 2004.

Our news ex­change was very rich in those days; so too the pas­sion for jour­nal­ism and for go­ing af­ter the sto­ry in all its di­men­sions.

Fast for­ward to 2025, and in an un­can­ny full cir­cle mo­ment, I now get to lead the very news­room that I had de­vel­oped such a strong affin­i­ty for and af­fil­i­a­tion with near­ly two decades be­fore fate brought me to Port of Spain to live and work.

As CNC3 cel­e­brates its 20th an­niver­sary, it is a plea­sure for me to serve as Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor and to en­sure that it not on­ly con­tin­ues to re­flect that his­toric verve, but al­so up­holds the time-ho­n­oured tenets of good jour­nal­ism, in­clud­ing ac­cu­ra­cy.

In an ever-chang­ing me­dia land­scape, we at CNC3 strive not on­ly to be fear­less but al­so to be fair, im­par­tial, and guid­ed by in­tegri­ty, pub­lic ac­count­abil­i­ty, and re­spect for our au­di­ence.

Our con­tract with our au­di­ence re­quires keen at­ten­tion to de­tail, rig­or­ous ver­i­fi­ca­tion of facts, re­liance on cred­i­ble sources, and sound ed­i­to­r­i­al judg­ment. That is our solemn com­mit­ment as we cel­e­brate 20 years.

Long may it be so!

Here’s wish­ing CNC3 an­oth­er fruit­ful and re­ward­ing 20 years and be­yond!