St. George’s, Grenada: Media Workers Association of Grenada (MWAG) must continue providing professional training for young and aspiring journalists; and second, the practitioners themselves must be zealous enough to do everything possible to improve their professionalism and go beyond the daily routine of their jobs, according to a Caribbean News Now article.
The 6th Annual Media Awards were distributed in an award ceremony on January 22 to winners whose best media work for 2011 was judged in Jamaica by Professor Canute James of the Caribbean Institute of Media and Communication of the University of the West Indies, with a total of fifteen prizes being awarded.
WEE FM’s Mikey Hutchinson was chosen as the first recipient of the Anthony “Jericho” Greenidge Award. It carries a $1,000 cash reward and a Digicel smart phone. The award is in remembrance of Greenidge, the popular radio personality, who died last November in New York.
Of the remaining 14 awards, one was given to Shem Joseph for Best Locally Produced Commercial and Best Locally Produced Video and another was handed to Amanda John for Best Public Service Announcement; both of whom are with Brainstorm Productions.
The article said that Television dominated in the remaining categories, with no awards for radio news and programming.
Radio, while popular with its call-in format and music, must consider other avenues for “edutaining,” educating and entertaining listeners. They must provide “edutaining” programming that would involve research, scripting and production; something that was a staple of radio in Grenada until recently. However, judging from the Media Awards, newspaper and online reporting on the internet is faring only slightly better than that of radio.
One award was giving for online writing. It was a feature written by veteran journalist Rawle Titus, who is also MWAG’s president.
In newspaper writing, the single award went to another veteran journalist, Lincoln Depradine, who is also author of White Frock & Coals Dust: The Story Of A Community Called The Wharf. Depradine was awarded for the Best Entertainment Story.
All other winners were from TV: Sherry-Ann Noel, Blossom Alexis-Welch and Beverly Sinclair of FLOW CC6; Kishawn Thomas, Eugenia Peters and Orisha Joseph of the Grenada Broadcasting Network; and Cheavron Benjamin of MTV.
Oslyn Crosby, who now works with the Grenada Cultural Foundation, won for an outstanding tourism story that was produced and broadcast while employed at CC6.
GBN employees also claimed the Long Service Awards which are decided upon each year by MWAG’s executive. The 2012 recipients were Lew Smith and Eugennie Mason.
The Caribbean News Now article stated that while local TV programming has its shortcomings, it appears that quality production in other media – newspaper, radio and online – needs to increase even more rapidly and requires the involvement of more younger practitioners.
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