Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Award-win­ning jour­nal­ist John Babb was re­mem­bered as an icon of the lo­cal me­dia fra­ter­ni­ty by his for­mer col­leagues and friends who paid trib­ute fol­low­ing his death yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Babb, 91, start­ed his al­most 70-year ca­reer at the Port-of-Spain Gazette in 1946 be­fore mov­ing to the T&T Guardian.

In 1968, he took ad­van­tage of an im­mi­gra­tion re­cruit­ment dri­ve by the then-Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment and mi­grat­ed with his wife. Babb ini­tial­ly strug­gled to find work in his field but even­tu­al­ly got a job at Mc­Graw-Hill, Cana­da’s largest pub­lish­ing house.

Af­ter three years, Babb re­turned to Trinidad and the T&T Guardian.

Dur­ing his time at this news­pa­per, Babb held the dis­tinc­tion of be­ing the on­ly jour­nal­ist able to se­cure ex­clu­sive in­ter­views with the coun­try’s first prime min­is­ter Dr Er­ic Williams.

Babb was re­port­ed­ly of­fered jobs by Williams sev­er­al times but re­peat­ed­ly turned down the of­fers to main­tain his unim­peach­able pro­fes­sion­al in­tegri­ty.

He even­tu­al­ly re­tired in 1993 but his time away from the me­dia was short-lived as he joined long-time col­league and friend Therese Mills when she found­ed the T&T News­day news­pa­per that year.

In 1994, Babb was award­ed the Hum­ming­bird Medal Sil­ver for his work in jour­nal­ism and 18 years lat­er, he re­ceived the Hum­ming­bird Medal Gold at the 2012 Na­tion­al Awards cer­e­mo­ny.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, for­mer T&T Guardian Sports Ed­i­tor Valenti­no Singh said Babb was al­ready an es­tab­lished and dec­o­rat­ed jour­nal­ist who took the time to men­tor young jour­nal­ists like him.

“We young jour­nal­ists were not let down by that rep­u­ta­tion be­cause he was a very mild-man­nered man and one who was very ap­proach­able. He was al­ways will­ing to as­sist you or cor­rect you,” Singh said.

He said while Babb will be most re­mem­bered for his con­tri­bu­tion to the lo­cal me­dia, he was al­so a pan-afi­ciona­do who had a long as­so­ci­a­tion with the St James Tripo­lians Steel Or­ches­tra.

“In the ear­ly days of Triploians Steel Or­ches­tra he was very in­stru­men­tal to its resur­gence as a pan round the neck or sin­gle pan band,” Singh said.

He not­ed that Babb con­tin­ued to serve as a men­tor for young jour­nal­ists even in the twi­light of his ca­reer.

“In the lat­ter part of his ca­reer he saw him­self more as a shep­herd to help the young peo­ple com­ing in­to the news­room,” he said.

Guardian Me­dia’s Deputy Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor Samp­son Nan­ton re­count­ed his ex­pe­ri­ences with Babb who served as his first news ed­i­tor when he joined the T&T News­day in 1997.

“John was one of the most help­ful and nur­tur­ing jour­nal­ists I have ever met. He would lit­er­al­ly take you from scratch and take the time to sit with you and show you how to write sto­ries,” Nan­ton said.

He cred­it­ed Babb for his first over­seas as­sign­ment, in which he trav­elled to the Unit­ed States to cov­er the open­ing of a British West In­di­an Air­ways (BWIA) of­fice at the John F Kennedy Air­port in New York. A se­nior jour­nal­ist had been as­signed be­fore Babb in­ter­vened.

“He said no let Samp­son get that ex­pe­ri­ence. It turned out to be my first trip to the Unit­ed States,” he said.

“He opened doors for a num­ber of jour­nal­ists and he un­der­stood the need for peo­ple to grow.”

Nan­ton said he would re­mem­ber Babb’s good sense of hu­mour.

“You could go in­to his of­fice when things were wind­ing down and he would give you many jokes,” he said.

Re­cent­ly re­tired T&T Guardian news ed­i­tor Robert Alon­zo said Babb was one of the few jour­nal­ists who was able to write short­hand.

That now rare skill as­sist­ed Babb in pro­vid­ing de­tailed re­ports on nu­mer­ous high-pro­file tri­als in­clud­ing drug king­pin Dole Chadee and mem­bers of his gang.

“He cov­ered tri­als word for word. He tried to teach peo­ple but they were not re­al­ly ca­pa­ble of adapt­ing to it,” Alon­zo said.

He and Babb of­ten trad­ed sto­ries about their pet par­rots and af­ter his par­rot es­caped his cage, Babb told him how his par­rot Fred roamed his yard in Diego Mar­tin freely and nev­er flew away.

“He said he opened the cage and told the par­rot if you want to go and don’t come back, go, and the par­rot came back,” he said.

Vet­er­an jour­nal­ist Andy John­son said he worked with Babb briefly at the T&T Guardian be­fore be­com­ing a com­peti­tor af­ter he moved to the T&T Ex­press.

John­son not­ed that Babb was high­ly re­gard­ed by some of the sources they shared.

“They al­ways said once you tell John Babb some­thing you can rest as­sured that it would be re­port­ed ex­act­ly as you told him,” John­son said.

In a so­cial me­dia post, for­mer jour­nal­ist Kei­th Subero said Babb was his in­spi­ra­tion be­fore he joined the me­dia and that ad­mi­ra­tion did not waiv­er when he met Babb at the T&T Guardian.

“Dai­ly, John Babb pro­duced the fastest work and the clean­est copy in the news­room,” Subero not­ed.

He re­called that Babb reg­u­lar­ly got the news­pa­per’s front page sto­ry and “con­duct­ed him­self with a bear­ing and pro­fes­sion­al style that caused me to mod­el my ca­reer af­ter him as a young man.”

Com­ment­ing in a re­port in the T&T News­day, that pa­per’s ed­i­tor-in-chief Camille Moreno de­scribed Babb as a “well-loved men­tor and fa­ther fig­ure to gen­er­a­tions of jour­nal­ists.”

“He was renowned for his cov­er­age of lo­cal and glob­al pol­i­tics, and court re­port­ing, where his short­hand skills made him a leg­end,” she said.

“He was a fear­less, fun­ny, and in­spir­ing per­son to have known.”