Journalist Raoul Pantin, 71, dies

Pantin’s death shocked his family and those closest to him. His family said he died peacefully, though a cause of death was not specified. He is survived by daughters Pilar and Mandisa.

Mandisa yesterday declined comment saying, “my family and I are still in shock about this.”

Pantin was born on June 5, 1943. He went to Fatima College and was the holder of a diploma in journalism from the Thomson Foundation in Cardiff, Wales. He participated in journalism seminars, including one at the University of Chicago, and also lectured in colleges and universities in the United States and South America.

Pantin won several journalism awards and in 2006 was honoured by the Media Association of Trinidad and Tobago and the Trinidad and Tobago Publishers and Broadcasters Association (TTPBA). Up until his death, Pantin worked as a columnist for the Trinidad Express. He had worked as an editor there and had retired in 2005. Pantin also worked at the Trinidad Guardian.

Pantin was one of a team of pioneering journalists at TTT in the 1980s who dramatically expanded the coverage of the chamber. He fronted a weekly Parliament Review, the first ever programme to place cameras inside Parliament and report on proceedings there with direct video footage. Today, Parliament is widely covered and broadcast live.

Pantin was also a writer, poet, playwright and author of a screenplay. He wrote Days of Wrath, a first-hand 163-page account of the 1990 attacks of the Jamaat al Muslimeen on the Parliament, Police Headquarters and the lone televison station, Trinidad and Tobago Television (TTT). Pantin was at TTT when it was sieged by insurgents. In his harrowing account, he writes of the moment when he was freed after days of torment.

“I fought to control the tears, feeling sorry for myself and for Trinidad, the place I had grown up in and known, or thought I had known, and loved,” Pantin writes on page 144. “I was overwhelmed by it all, fearful that this beautiful island, this extraordinary country of great intellectuals, poets, artists and everyday work people had been assaulted, brutalised, soiled – like the TTT building which seven days ago had been just a normal place to work.”

Pantin also wrote the screenplay for Bim, which was produced and directed by Hugh A Robertson. The film, starring a young Ralph Maraj, is regarded as the first local movie. Actor Michael Cherrie yesterday on Facebook described Pantin as a “master wordsmith playwright, journalist, author who wrote the screenplay for arguably the greatest TT film ever made, Bim.” Pantin also wrote one published collection of poetry, Journey. Non-fiction books included Black Power Day.

Jones P Madeira, Newsday’s editor-in-chief – who supervised Pantin at TTT – yesterday paid tribute.

“To me he was the corporal,” Madeira said. “After dubbing himself that rank, he designated me as the general. This was in the aftermath of the 1990 attempted coup in which we became prime hostages, and it is also an indication of the role we had to play to emerge alive from the dark and dangerous dungeon Trinidad and Tobago Television had become for us for six days and five nights from the evening of July 27 1990.”

Madeira continued, “Raoul up to recently told me that he never overcame the terror we faced. Yet, as we crawled around inside Television House to avoid being hit by the bullets that rattled off the walls of the building, Raoul, except for one fleeting moment, never lost his cool. He epitomized resilience. He epitomized the hard-nosed journalist of the early era, unafraid of reporting and strong in his conviction that the best media was the unfettered one, devoid of interference by anyone including the bosses.”

Madeira added, “I became a better media person for having known and interacted with him, and I am truly saddened by his passing. May my corporal rest in peace.”

Up until Tuesday night, Pantin was still voicing his views on current affairs. On a Facebook comment hours before his death, he wrote, “You may succeed in the transition from professional journalist to government boot-licker but nobody will respect you for that, rendering your new role virtually counter-productive!”