Man on the beat for 56 years

It was something that I felt very proud about.” Those were the words of John Babb, News Editor of Newsday as he spoke last Saturday at a function at the Trinidad Hilton when the Media Association of Trinidad and Tobago (MATT) honoured him for 56 years of service to journalism.

What made Babb so proud was his coverage of the murder trial of Dole Chadee and his gang of eight in 1996. As he recalled, he went down to the Chaguaramas court where the trial was held every day Monday to Friday and from 9 am to 1.30 pm he wrote Shorthand notes of the trial. Then he returned to the office in Port-of-Spain and with only a small snack for lunch transcribed pages and pages of his shorthand into the verbatim reports that readers of Newsday followed with keen interest every day of the 56-day long trial. It was a monumental task but then Babb had covered many other trials of notorious criminals. Those of Boysie Singh, Dr Dalip Singh, Abdul Malik and the Muslimeen trial and appeal.

Babb is probably the last journalist in Trinidad and Tobago today who writes shorthand, a skill he developed at the age of 14. “I told my commercial school teacher that I wanted to be a  Shorthand expert,” he recalls. She took him at his word and for three years he “ate, slept and dreamt Shorthand”. He eventually achieved a peak of 220 words per minute, which speed enabled him to accurately record to the word what was being said at meetings, press conferences, trials in court and parliamentary proceedings. His accuracy made him the only reporter that Dr Eric Williams would later trust, giving him exclusive interviews, because he was certain Babb would not misquote him.

Babb entered the newspaper business in 1947 as a junior reporter at the Port-of-Spain Gazette where he remembers his salary was the “princely sum” of $2.50 a week. He worked his way up to senior reporter and eventually to what was referred to as “Specialist Shorthand Writer”. In those days success as a reporter required Shorthand. After 10 years at the Gazette which later became the Trinidasd Chronicle, he joined the Trinidad Guardian in 1957, one year after the PNM came to power under Dr Williams. His job title at the Guardian was Senior Reporter/Shorthanbd Writer and it involved writing and editing news for radio broadcasts. In 1962 he was awarded a US government in-service scholarship working with Radio WMCA in New York, WISH television in Indianapolis and on the Indianapolis Star newspaper. On his return to Trinidad in 1963 he found that another daily had been started. It was an offshoot of a UK newspaper chain and was called the Trinidad Daily Mirror which he joined in 1963 as news editor. He continued there until 1966 when the Mirror closed and returned to the Guardian as a senior reporter.

As the 1960s drew to a close, however, he felt himself in a rut and decided to go with his family to Canada. He worked there with Canadian Pacific Rail before landing a job as assistant editor at Maclean-Hunter’s Publishing House in Toronto. It was Canada’s largest publishing house with 38 publications, including Maclean’s Magazine. He became the assistant editor of the more popular publication named “Marketing” Canada held his interest for three years, until out of the blue a telegram came from Trinidad. “The Editor of the Guardian, the late Lenn Chongsing asked if I would return to resume my job as senior general reporter. I had some conditions, of course and these being met, I returned home, and right into the middle of the hectic Black Power movement.” From the cold of Canada to the heat of marching around Trinidad following the footsteps of the Black Power protesters — from Port-of-Spain to San Juan, to Couva and Caroni, Babb was back on the beat. “My feet ached,” he recalled last week, “but I was happy as my reports were all first-hand.”

It was during the oil boom years of the 1970s that he recalls the development of his relationship with Dr Williams. He was often the reporter who travelled when the Dr Williams group left the country, including the first visit to Cuba. But long before Dr Williams emerged as leader Babb had been reporting politics under equally colourful men, whose names have entered the history books of Trinidad and Tobago. Among them were Albert Gomes, Roy Joseph, Tubul Uriah Butler, Chanka Maharaj, Victor Bryan, Pope Maclean and Ajodhasingh. “Ajodhasingh was my friend,” said Babb. “Apart from politics he was a practising masseur and it was not unusual that during a break in parliament he would find the time to fix a sprained wrist or twisted ankle.” Babb was on the job when a young man by the name of Patrick Manning entered the political arena and won the San Fernando East seat, eventually becoming Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago. Babb retired from the Guardian in 1993 but retirement for him was not the same thing it is for most people. “When the talk started going around that a new daily newspaper was about to be launched with Therese Mills as Editor, my interest was aroused. She too had already retired and there were jokes making the rounds that Newsday was a newspaper to be run by “geriatrics”. We heard that it wouldn’t last six months and other negative comments. As News Editor I took on the challenge almost as a personal commitment to show what geriatrics could do. Of course it was tough for us all. In the first three months it was impossible to get a day off and we worked from Sunday to Sunday.

The rest is history, for within four years Newsday was the Number One newspaper in the country in terms of readership — a position it holds to today. It has been a case of “let’s show them what geiatrics can do!” His career in jopurnalism has taken him to two US presidential elections, he has worked in Kenya and Tanzania on UN Fellowships and covered political conferences throughout the region and other countries. He has earned five Media Awards for Excellence in Journalism, two of which were for his reports on the 1990 Muslimeen attempted coup. In 1994 he achieved a national award — the Humming Bird Medal for Journalism. In addition he has found time to pursue his interest in the steelband, being for many years leader of the Tripolians pan-round-the-neck band of St James. For 48 years to the present he has also pursued weight-training, keeping trim and fit after many years on the beat.