How do you build a paper?

While, as cliched as that might sound, human beings cannot help but touch what reminds them most of their loved ones. The image of her mother stared back at her.

To many, Therese Mills was a respected reporter with the Gazette, Trinidad Guardian’s Sunday editor, first female editor of the Trinidad Guardian and CEO and editor-in-chief of Newsday but Suzanne knew her differently, she knew her as her mother.

She had the task of putting together Byline: The Memoirs of Therese Mills after her mother’s death in 2014. But its content spans Therese’s growing up in Diego Martin, her entrance into media and the zenith of her career with the growth and development of Newsday into the country’s third daily newspaper. The 198- page memoir is littered with some of TT ’s most prominent political and social figures among them the country’s first prime minister Dr Eric Williams, social worker Audrey Jeffers and former chief justice and legal luminary Sir Hugh Wooding among them.

From March 2016, Suzanne began the preparation of telling the story written by Therese of her long, journeyed career in journalism.

In an interview with Newsday at her Diego Martin home she once shared with her mother, Suzanne said, “For those months that I worked on it my only contact was the publishers.” Putting together the memoirs dictated to different Newsday secretaries raised a “combination of emotions” in Suzanne but it also gave deeper insight into the work done by her mother.

“When reading the book I actually felt she was a much better writer than I was, quite frankly,” Suzanne said.

The days and nights worked on the memoir –often pushing herself from as early as 3 am –illuminated while there were differences in styles there was also great similarity.

She most noticed the similarity in a letter Therese penned to then CJ Wooding. She wrote to Wooding over comments he made about women with which she “strongly disagreed”.

“I realised this when she wrote to Hugh Wooding about Milud and I thought this was very pointed criticism of a sitting chief justice and it surprised me. I knew she did a lot of really good features and did the Boysie/Tanty Merle work but I did not realise that she did other things like that, like so much of what I had to do, although it was of a different style and time.” This has given Suzanne a guide going forward, she said, sightly wiping at her eyes. Her mother’s life has given her the confidence to expand as a writer, she said, aiming to do her own book as well as other writing projects going forward.

Although a career in journalism was not something Therese envisioned for her children, Suzanne said when she began writing her column for Newsday she encouraged her writing. “The paper needed a daily commentary. I did one called ‘Between The Lines’ plus other work as a reporter,” Suzanne said. The column became popular.

Having studied abroad she “did not feel constrained by Trinidadian society, to the point where at times she would say, ‘listen there are repercussions’. Basically I was so intrepid I did not care whether it was a minister, prime minister that sort of thing. She let it happen but there were times she would say, ‘maybe you should re-write this and be a little more subtle’.

But she encouraged the writing,” Suzanne said.

Building Newsday into the third force as described by political commentator, Dr Hamid Ghany in the book, was quite a feat in Suzanne’s eyes.

“Newsday, I think, was quite a feat and I was thinking recently, I was there but did not really have time to contemplate the totality of the enterprise because I was busy being a fledgling reporter running all over the place so it did not occur to me, that here was something that was created from scratch. Apart from having to build the team to do it and a lot of people who were loyal to her and had faith in her, as you read in the book, moved with her to Newsday, people from the Guardian. When I prepared the book it made me stop to think, good grief, how do you build a paper? You have to be experienced to decide news pages, commentary, editorial features, sports, you take it for granted that those things are there but how do you find the people to do that.

How do you decide how many news pages? Just things like that.

For me, it is quite a feat to have two established papers and be able to wiggle in into that field.” Suzanne and her siblings spent many days in the Guardian’s newsroom. The enormity of her mother’s accomplishments were lost on her at that time because of her age. The fact that the “phone rang constantly and that she never stopped not even on weekends,” were signs of Therese’s hard work in journalism.

Her accomplishments, Suzanne said, were living examples of attributes such as raw talent, organisational skills and writing skills.

Even when she became chief editor at the Trinidad Guardian, even though many men she worked with expected to get the spot, she was able to pull them together, thanks to her leadership skills. Suzanne said, “I think at the time a lot of the men around her expected to get the position and were quite upset, at first, that she was appointed editor-in-chief.

“They realised they knew her worth and worked with her. I think she was good even if she was dominant and a very strong woman, she was very good at leading teams. She would be strict but at the same time she inspired because she had this unbelievable ability to not only see news but to make a story and get angles. I was thinking this weekend what no one thought of at the time. It was the little things that made it extraordinary.” That trait was noted throughout the book by others – that she had an eye for a unique angle.

The book has been sent to media schools throughout the TT and the Caribbean, The Ken Gordon School of Journalism and Communication Studies at the College of Science, Technology and Applies Arts of Trinidad and Tobago (Costatt) as well as the Caribbean Institute of Media and Communication (CARIMAC) and University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica.

But Byline demonstrates that while the medium of the message might have changed, (Facebook and other social media vehicles), the basics of news gathering and information dissemination have not.

To be great at whatever is chosen in life, the enduring principles of hard work, persistence and an unending surge of passion is necessary.

Byline: The memoirs of Therese Mills retails soft cover at TT $140 or US$20 on Amazon and hard cover TT $180 or US$30 on Amazon.