MY first media engagement was in 1981 at GNNL, with a graphic story named ‘THE SHROUDED LEGACY’. I had written it and illustrated it, driven by the confident eagerness of youth, but it was horribly done by industry standards; yet, Frank Campbell the then editor thought it good enough to give me a chance, I took a lot of punches from my peers and wanted that artwork out of the papers so badly. I however survived, and spared no effort to rise to the challenge.

I became involved in a more profound way as a freelance commercial artist in 1984; this was the real newspaper baptism for me. The characters that shaped my on-the-job training were confident professionals, that weren’t afraid to guide and share their knowledge of the ages. Frank Pilgrim, Claudette Earle, Godfrey Wray, Courtney Gibson, Adam Harris, Raschid Osman. This atmosphere urged me by 1987-88 into feature writing and comic strip development; I was before that rooted into serious graphic, historical and folklore storytelling, which my understanding and training in research supported.

After elections in 1992, I experienced the downside of a new dismal, politicised era in newspaper practices.

The ‘Shadow of the Jaguar’ was dropped because it was said to be a ‘Black super hero.’ My column was dropped because according to Sharief Khan, my subject matter that consisted of culture, history and coverage of reggae shows and local urban roots industry was- “We ent interested in them things.” I was not the only one to be dropped. A legal friend then outlined the perilous status of the freelance media contributor, whose fate lay in the priorities of the editor and whom he consulted with, his actions could be relevant or off, but in the end it wouldn’t matter. In late 2015, the current editor invited me to submit articles for the Sunday GNNL edition. Neil Marks was the Sunday Editor.

It wasn’t working out; I would submit 10 articles and three would get published, except for one occasion when I agreed the article was not composed as I should have done it. I was ready to drop the column when the editor shifted it to Friday, and I have held that corner since then. The recent issue with David Hinds and Lincoln Lewis raised curious questions as to the contention of media practices against the custom of practice and how it became a national issue of sorts, taking into the knowledge base that contributors are dropped from media houses all the time, thus, there is need to upgrade the relationship with contributor and media house, which also points to what I have observed at GNNL.

This is not the GNNL I had worked in before: departmental fragmentation, the collaborations necessary between sections are not there, there’s no common language. What could have been easily proposed in the late 80s is not collectively understood now. We were constructing a children’s edition pre-1992, that included Claudette Earle, the then general manager and a few external minds.

This can’t be discussed now. Crucial expertise is missing across our media; what needs to be done are guidelines of engagement on contributions of media workers, templates that can place value where expertise is not available to make knowledgeable evaluations on let’s say reporters as against journalists, opinion pieces, cartoons, editorials and other feature articles, illustrated series, medical items, etc, based on the credibility and research value of contributions, as against plagiarism and guess work.

When I started offering illustrated storytelling on fiction and non-fiction, the local academic in an international institution halted my work because of the cost. I urged this lady to take a few days and research ‘cheaper costs.’ After a few days, her immediate foreign boss called me and instructed me to continue the project. What I had done was source US costs and valued mine at a quarter of what they were charging overseas, even that was too much for this local professional.

I was also surprised that in-house issues were discussed in social media, Board vs. Editor. The entire media in Guyana need to have a new look at self, [some are ahead of others] and the talents that contribute to its nature, as well as the responsibility of its organs to the functional health of its being. I started at GNNL and talking to media talents across the landscape, there’s much to be done to cultivate the awareness of current print media cultural practices, accountability and responsibility to readers.

Either do media or supermarket tabloid, either way awareness of the dollar value of what contributors bring to the table, to collaborate with its editor must be second nature, we’re in the 21st century, we got fuh dig deeper.

Regards
Barrington Braithwaite