One of T&T’s most-gifted and prolific journalists was how Trinidad Express columnist Raoul Pantin was epitomised as tributes continued to pour in after his passing yesterday. He was 71. Pantin, who worked in the print, broadcast and television media for several years, died in his sleep at his home in Port-of-Spain. He was also the screenwriter for the locally-made film Bim. His daughter, Mandisa, herself a writer, said the family was still in shock over her father’s death.
Close friend and colleague for many years Jones P Madeira, editor-in-chief at Newsday, said he knew Pantin for most of his professional life. Pantin began his career at NBS Radio 610 in 1962 and joined the Trinidad Daily Mirror a year later. He went on to work as a political and business reporter for the T&T Guardian and the Trinidad Express, of which he was a former editor.
Chronicling major events in which the two worked together, Madeira said while at Radio 610 he remembered Pantin running afoul with the government of the day. “Raoul was one of the producers of the News Makers programmes, a comprehensive coverage of the days events.
“The programme got us into trouble with the government of the day. There was a bloody Tuesday march which the police had broken up and we had covered some elements of it but the government was upset about it. The station’s management fired a number of journalists, including Raoul,” Madeira reminisced. Madeira then went off to Caricom while Pantin joined the Trinidad Express.
Their paths, however, reconnected at the now defunct Trinidad and Tobago Television (TTT). “Raoul did an excellent job in producing the weekly parliamentary review...he had a natural eye for the news,” Medeira said. While producing the news on July 27, 1990 Pantin’s and Medeira’s life changed forever. They were caught in the invasion of the 114 members of the Jamaat al Muslimeen who stormed the Red House and TTT.
During those six days, Pantin and Medeira forged a closer bond, each depending on the other for support. “Raoul called me the general and he was corporal because we took the lead of dealing with the Muslimeen on the inside and we were able to pave the way to deal with the uprising. I would never forget the role Raoul played,” Madeira said. But the memories of those dark days stayed with Pantin.
“Raoul has always confided in me that he has never been able to get over it and he always felt that justice had never really been served but I always assured him and let him know we had secured a victory by getting the people out of there alive. “A hole has now been created in the journalistic profession...he was the consummate journalist,” Pantin said.
MORE than a reporter
Former editor-in-chief of the T&T Guardian Judy Raymond said her first memory of Pantin was of him walking around the ground-floor of The Express newsroom, decades ago, saying: “This is pressure!” That, she added, was his catchphrase. “It was part of Raoul’s carapace, the image he built of himself as a macho, hard-bitten journalist. But there was even more, this time unbearable pressure during the 1990 coup attempt, in which Raoul was caught up as a hostage at TTT.
He was never the same again. It left him one of the walking wounded and shattered a lot of illusions, not only about Trinidad but also about himself,” Raymond said. She said Pantin soldiered on and eventually in some respects recovered.
“Though it was wishful thinking—or perhaps a wish to keep some things private—that made him write at the end of his book on the coup that he ‘got on the bus and lived happily ever after.’ The next time our paths crossed in a newsroom he was still struggling to deal with the fallout from the coup attempt but then it was only in 2007 he was able to write the book, an indication of how deep a shadow it cast over his life,” Raymond said.
Since the news of Pantin’s death, she said people talked about him as a veteran reporter. “But I am not sure how many of them were around to actually read his work when he was in his heyday. I think as a journalist, he was at his best when he was on the ball and offered down-to-earth, salty commentary. “In another country perhaps he could have devoted himself to creative writing full-time and made a living from it.
“Journalism is a harsh taskmaster even for those not caught up in a violent insurrection. It can target their fragilities, and the pressure Raoul complained about so insouciantly before July 1990 was nothing compared to the pressure now,” Raymond said.