Dominic Kalipersad on Communication, Journalism & New Media | Corie Sheppard Podcast

Dominic Kalipersad joins us for a reflective, insightful conversation on communication, journalism, professionalism, language, and how Trinidad and Tobago is adapting to new media in the 21st century.

With 50 years across television, radio, print, and now digital platforms, Dominic shares what he’s learned about speaking with clarity, communicating with purpose, and educating through media — from his early days as a teacher, to TTT, to radio, to his long-form Instagram storytelling.

We explore how traditional media has changed, why social media must now be taken seriously, the role of language in identity, and how young people are engaging with history in new ways. Dominic also opens up about newsroom culture, mentorship, innovation, handling criticism, and why good communication still matters in every part of our lives.

This episode moves from professional lessons to national memory. Dominic reflects on major moments in T&T’s media landscape, including newsroom evolution, the shift in public expectations, and what it means to remain grounded, informed, and adaptable in a rapidly changing communication era.

Whether you’re a communicator, student, journalist, or simply someone who values thoughtful conversations about our country, this episode offers timeless lessons in clarity, confidence, and growth.

Key Topics

• Adapting to new media and digital platforms
• Communication and professionalism in everyday life
• How traditional and social media intersect
• The role of language in identity and understanding
• Teaching, mentorship, and lifelong learning
• The evolution of journalism in Trinidad & Tobago
• Young people, curiosity, and historical rediscovery
• Media responsibility, storytelling, and public trust
• Personal experiences across radio, print, and television
• Building confidence and presence on camera

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Stage And Guest Intro
• 1:51 Why The Course Includes Social Media
• 3:55 Structure Vs Informality In Media
• 5:23 Curating History On Instagram
• 8:25 Language, Identity, And Bilingual Reality
• 12:32 Teaching Roots And Early Classrooms
• 15:43 Into Television: Serendipity And Training
• 19:12 Innovating News Presentation
• 23:20 Democratizing Media And Radio’s Shift
• 27:03 Opinion, Neutrality, And Safety
• 31:18 Interview Craft And Holding Ground
• 36:05 Compartmentalizing Trauma And Cynicism
• 39:44 Youth, Leadership, And Speaking Out
• 43:32 Will Traditional Media Survive
• 47:08 Verifying News And Trusting Sources
• 49:25 1990 Attempted Coup: Inside TTT
• 55:12 Aftermath, Mental Health, And Gaps
• 1:01:20 Charisma, Indoctrination, And Memory
• 1:05:28 Growth, Apologies, And Dualities
• 1:09:12 Fifty Years On Air And Legacy
• 1:12:18 Coaching Voices: From Monks To CEOs
• 1:15:14 Practical Communication For Everyday Life
• 1:18:08 Final Reflections On Learning

Transcript

Corie: 0:02

Welcome to the Corey Shepherd Podcast. Welcome back to everybody who's been listening. Welcome to everybody on YouTube. Welcome to all the new viewers. Today we have a special guest with us. You don't like when you call him special and icon and legend and those things. So we'll just pretend we never said it. We have Dominic Kalipas. How's everything? Pretty good. Good? I have to start by telling people that I'm now in class with Dominic. So this is a little bit, you know. I have to be proper already, underdressed. I do all the things that they said, don't do any class. We reach too close to the time to start. We reach underdressed, underprepared. No reflection on your teaching.

Dominic: 0:42

You know, but in this age of new media and so on, the rules are a bit different. They're not as formal. So do you do? All right, good.

Corie: 0:51

Maybe that's a good place to jump in because I was I was surprised when we started the first session that you spoke on not just news presenting or entertainment reporting or the formal side of what we used to call traditional media. But you're telling people about TikTok and those types of things and just doing blogs or podcasts and so on. So you structured the course that way.

Dominic: 1:10

Absolutely, absolutely. It's really a communication program in which one can operate in various kinds of media. And you've got to operate in the century. You know, we are living in an age of so many communication platforms, really, the greatest communication age in the history of the planet. You know, so people have got to, those who are interested, at least be informed of how to operate in multiple platforms.

Corie: 1:39

I guess I guess I always wonder if people who are in traditional media see social media as media. You know, do you see the same? So I was I was surprised when you when you spoke about it.

Dominic: 1:51

Yes, I I think they do, and they've just chosen a lane. You know, uh one that is maybe more traditional or more formal or has a little more integrity than the emerging social media, because social media can be used to educate, to entertain, and it can be abused.

Corie: 2:13

It's easy to get carried away with it too, because uh just learning from you in terms of how structured it would be in traditional media. You have a specific start time, a specific end time, you have breaks to think of. And my first time doing a radio course is when I started learning, okay, this is not just showing up and talking. It feels that way when when when professionals do it. Yes. But um, social media is a little bit of just showing up and talking. Like people go for as long as they want.

Dominic: 2:39

It's not just that, it could be less formal. And there is an informality that I think the the viewer links with. And and the viewer gets, I think, um a more personal relationship in that informal kind of setting. Like they they like to go along with the ride with you, they see your in your vulnerability, how you may have started, the errors you have made, and you admit it and you go along and and they grow with you.

Corie: 3:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You see the evolution of it over time. Absolutely. So let me ask you about your social media now. You manage it yourself, like your Instagram.

Dominic: 3:18

You do with retirement, you have time. Retirement is not true, it's not true. Well, you're more in control of the time, which is one of the things that I enjoy. You know, you're in control of your time, and you can decide which appointment you're going to pick it up.

Corie: 3:45

Your Instagram is one that's very, very interesting. Like I was saying before we started. I recorded on my own for years just talking about current affairs, and your page has become a new source, maybe I shouldn't say new source, source with an R right? Uh just on history, historical things, things that connect today with or connect somebody's history with what we're doing today. Deliberate in terms of what you set out to do on social media.

Dominic: 4:10

Well, you know, yes and no. Um my entire career has really been about education, even though it's been defined as journalism, it really was about education. In fact, I started off as an educator and life happened, and I ended up in that career. Um so upon retirement, I wanted to be part of the space and not be involved in frippery. You know, so I i as I I started writing about things that in which I was interested and things that I enjoyed, and if you liked it, fine. I wasn't writing it for anybody. In fact, at the beginning, I used to have a sentence at the end saying, This is for my own personal interests. Really? Oh, yes. This is just for my own personal interests. Is that diary for you? Absolutely. I was just doing it for fun, and people seem to like it, and you know, I wasn't after followers, I wasn't after all these things, and people seem to like it, and I think there are 69,000 people now. But I qualified by by um insisting that people are aware that I am not a historian. Oh, you're not? No, I'm not a historian. I'm a person who is who's interested in in history. Right. So I write about what I research and and find out, and it's interesting to write it from uh 21st century eyes, because our history has traditionally been provided to us by the colonizer. Of course. And so that's I find that rather interesting.

Corie: 6:01

Well, no, they say that make a lot of sense because when I look at um I watch the page grow over the years because at first I was like, wait, this topic percent of the news. Like, what's happening here, you know? And then it's such like all these little nuggets, it would be nuggets that would cause somebody because if it's coming out of your own curiosity, it sparks mine. So a lot of times you post something, and then we're in an era now where you could look things up. You could you could learn a lot more than absolutely. I'm like, what? I remember you posting something about Valman Jones. That was one of the things I was like, what is this? And yet you do it so well in the context of it's almost like what I was trying to do. I was trying to look at the current affairs and tie it to things that are happening before our culture or Calypso in particular, which also you you've been doing. And when I read the store, I was like, What? But this is great because I talk about somebody who cancelled a concert here and was supposed to come in and I was like, hey, this happened before. And so I always credit it, but it it sparks our own curiosity. So when I saw the page getting the followers that is getting younger and younger, the comments.

Dominic: 7:00

Yeah, it's like young, young people. It's rather interesting. It's rather interesting that um there is a thirst among young people who I think we dismiss and say that they're not interested in this or that, but there's a thirst among young people. And I get a lot of comments from people, young people saying, hey, you know, I've now I've got this information I can share with children or children that I'm going to. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Corie: 7:27

I think it's important. I like that you said that we sometimes uh dismiss as a good word. We we assume that they don't like it, they're not going to know it, they don't like it. You hear it a lot in Calypso, like Calypso old, and they're not going to be interested in that at all. So, one of the things in joining the class has been your approach to language. Like, I soak that in a lot. And I guess we all saw it with been seeing you on TV for so many years. And just the way you would break it up. Like what Dominic does a lot for people who are going to join the class, right? There's no marketing campaign either, but it was just excellent. You would basically take out words and go through with people how the words are pronounced. And I always remember being in UI in our marketing communications course. Denise Deming was electoral, uh, coincidentally. And we had this thing to do in Puerto Rico, so I said, all right, we'll go to and get the we'll get in the top newspaper. It's a sour stand. And the whole class era up laughing, and I was really laughing at it. And you broke down kind of like why we say sour versus versus San. And many, many things like that. I remember Devotee. Like a lot of them is like, okay, what have I been saying all these years?

Dominic: 8:37

Well, you know, our history is so fascinating and so mixed up, so very different to the other Caribbean islands because of the various peoples that have come here and the various conquerors they've been and so on, which influences our language, which is a language, you know, and it's not that I'm telling people this is the way to speak. I am allowing people to recognize that we are in fact bilingual, maybe even multilingual. And in order to be understood, being good at both. All right. I suppose add a little vocabulary to be even better understood.

Corie: 9:35

Which is evidence. But it's funny, even going back to that capturing the history. I saw a recent post from yours like conqueror a song I like a Lord Trinidad Dictionary. You say Webster should have come to Timula Dictionary.

Dominic: 9:49

It's been a matter of discussion for eons. Yeah.

Corie: 9:52

You know, it's a matter of discussion for eons. I remember Cotise Kotala. Was it that what Zahwa they were attempting to do? Well, Codise Kotola, I guess, yes.

Dominic: 10:02

It is, it is a sort of um, it's not an academic work. It's more of a pop kind of book, uh, which serves a useful purpose. It's a good transition book. I would highly recommend it. You know, there's Lisa Warner, which is a more Lisa Werner, who is a has a more academic publication, which goes into the etymology and helps you to have a deeper understanding of how the word came about and so on. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Corie: 10:27

So your love for language, where where did that start? What I don't know. It shows like you have a passion for the way we speak, both like both languages.

Dominic: 10:39

Well, I guess I guess my parents um who always insisted that we spoke well, I suppose, or always insisted that we presented ourselves to the world as if we can conquer it. You know, you gotta do well at school and speak, uh have good manners and so on. And they were not just teaching us these skills, they were teaching us to be masters at living, you know, uh, and to to be our best. And I suppose it evolved from there. Yeah.

Corie: 11:19

I remember you talking about your mom in particular, not having secondary school training instead, and she was that she was she spoke like that.

Dominic: 11:26

She was a wise, wise woman. And you know, uh we live in a matriarchal society uh society. I think the the the mother dictates the culture of the house. Um and and that extends from slavery and so on, where uh single parenthood was is nothing new to Trinidad society. But my mother was an Afro-Venezuelan woman who married this Indian man, another complicated situation. That's our once and one, if you ever had one. At that time. So, you know, I I don't think that um her side of the family, maybe even his side of family, were even too pleased that these two people got together. So they charted their own course. Um it's uh it's a different experience for the biracial person, even in Trinidad. People want you to decide you're either one or the next. I mean, some some of my brothers and sisters are thought to be Afro, and some are thought to be Indian, and then the name Kali Passad. Yeah. You know, so she really defined what this community in this household should operate and how should it present themselves to the world.

Corie: 12:47

Right. You know, but it feels like I remember signing up for the course, and I said, I'll tell you why I signed up in the first place, right? Because when I edit episodes, all I hear is, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, right? Okay, of course. Nothing irritates me more than that. Because again, you listen to the best and you don't hear some of that. So I came there trying to figure out because you have some interviews I'll I'll bring up that that are masterful. And I'm I was also coming because especially in the beginning, I was nervous about asking certain questions. So when I'm leading up to the question, I'm not hearing what the answer is to the questions that were coming up there. So I came really, really interested in how how you do that. Dominic is teaching right now, right? He's trying to show me how to shut up while the other person talking. This is amazing. It's in real time. But when I when I came, we had to do some exercises like ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta. And at first I was like, okay, where where are we going with this? And I remember coming to the interview the next week and doing some of it in the car. And he encouraged us to do it. Look ugly doing it. And then all of a sudden, when I came here, I got to this table a little more relaxed and a little more fluent, and words came out a little easier. So those are things you formally learned that you're teaching people now, we pick up stuff over the years. Well, you know, yes.

Dominic: 14:06

I both formal and informal and and sort of self-educated along the way. I was trained at the BBC in you know, and my my degree in English and so on. I did a lot of um language and speaking and so on. Um, but as I tell my children, life is really about eternal learning. You know, you've always got to upskill yourself as you go along. So I did courses along the way, and but the average person would not necessarily be doing all of those things. Um I don't know why the hell I was so interested, but I was. But the key, I think, for the average person is to listen. Listen to persons you may admire, you wish to emulate. And just listening and paying attention, you might discover, hey, so that's the way that word is pronounced. You know, when when I was in secondary school, or literature teacher used to tell us, always have a dictionary at hand. You know, so you may discover a word, and you know, sometimes you use a word, but you really can't articulate the meaning. Right, right, yeah. So I grew up from a teenager having those references. And now we live at a time where the dictionary is in your cell phone, right? And changing fast. And changing fast. So you can improve your vocabulary and your speech instantly. It's easy.

Corie: 15:36

Yeah, you say it's easy, you do make it look easy, and I do enjoy your teaching style as well, because uh one of the things that uh I was telling you before we started as well, that last class was on camera, and it is an intimidating thing to be on camera in front of Dominica Lipisade, being the person who's like, all right, this is this is nerve-wracking. But you do create a very, very comfortable environment, and I feel as though you make it a point not to say, Okay, you have to be like me. You have to do what I did, you have to speak the way I speak. You give people a latitude to do it and give them the the feedback.

Dominic: 16:12

You've got to be yourself, as you are being yourself now, and you do a good job with the podcast. Yeah, you'll find out one of those oh, so David's lemon.

Corie: 16:23

Yeah, so I enjoy that that that that you you you take the time to teach. So your early days in teaching were what age well, I taught at primary school.

Dominic: 16:32

What's primary school too, right? I enjoyed it so much. Really, really. I taught first standard, uh, third standard, fourth standard, fifth standard. I taught at um, you know, when I and when I decided to enter the teaching system, I went through the Catholic Education Board, and they wanted to place me in certain kind of places. And I said, you know, I'd really like to go somewhere where I make a difference, you know, as a young person, you want to change the world. And um, so they assigned me to Rose Hill Artsy School, Piccadilly, um, Laventil, which was an eye-opener to this, you know, young middle-class guy who had never really been beyond Frederick Street. But it was a marvelous, marvelous. I mean, the children were like sponges, really, really wanting to learn. And then I went to Maryland R.C. School, which is up the hill in Mova near Lady Young Road there. And um and I felt I was making a contribution, really.

Corie: 17:42

So children at the time, uh you're talking about a time, what year that might have been, if you if you could date it without dating yourself. 70s, 70s. 70s. So teachers at the time, we would find that more teachers are particular about the way they use language and the way they speak to children and so on. So when you're going into school at that time, the way you speak to the children is the norm across teachers, or you have teachers who are talking like me loose and so on.

Dominic: 18:11

Okay, I can look at it two ways. Yeah, I think there was a change in post-independence, Trinidad.

Corie: 18:19

Okay.

Dominic: 18:20

Pre-independence had almost everyone almost had that kind of teacher you're referring to. Um post-independence, in I think in our attempt to identify ourselves and value our language, and in order to make a greater connection with the students, we were became a little more relaxed in the classroom, less formal and so on. So we were communicating with the children in the language with which they're more comfortable in order to help them to understand. That is one approach. Um the other is that many of I think many of the teachers began to develop a mentality like uh like what we think are ineffective public servants. So it was a job more than a vocation. And as a young person who wanted to change the world, um there came a time when the prime minister at the time, Dr. Eric Williams, still dating myself. Second Prime Minister, um announced that he was going to change what was then channel nine. Remember, we had channel two channels. We had channels two and thirteen, and the new channel is channel nine. And he was going to change channel nine into educational television. And wow, that light bulb went off, you know, and I had visions of, you know, the classroom would have been a thing of the past, and Trinidad will be using the technology and teaching students a la Sesame Street and so on and so on. So that's when I changed careers.

Corie: 20:18

Oh, so it's also innovation you were looking forward to what it will be.

Dominic: 20:22

Absolutely. I still had a desire to continue to be an educator, really. So I thought the future would have been in there. It's throughout my career, I've always been thinking of how we can do it better in the future. And so that happened.

Corie: 20:44

Yeah, that happened. So, what was your first step into media?

Dominic: 20:48

What was your first job? Well, I I had went abroad to study television and so on. And when I came back, um, it was during the July-August holiday, and coincidentally, there was a television production course being offered at Uwe run by an Australian producer, and I said, Well, I have nothing to do, I'll go do it. At the end of which we had it each to produce our own television program. And I wrote my little TV program, I drew all the graphics and all the visuals, I did it myself, and we all went to TTT to record this little program. And I went and I thought I did it okay. But as I was exiting the studio to come out into the entrance corridor, somebody from TTT called me and said, You wouldn't like to work here? And I said, Okay. And then to my surprise, I'm even more surprised talking about it now, he said, Would you like to start tomorrow? Well, that's good. Well you know, and I said, Okay, I didn't even know what the job was. You know, you're here same television, you thought, well, I'm going to be producing some show or something. They put me to work as a technical operator in the studio.

unknown: 22:28

Wow.

Dominic: 22:28

Doing the cameras, lights, and all those things. Valuablate, as it turned out, you know, I can do it all now, you know. But then again, in within less than a year, I was limbing with the guys in studio control, and somebody came to me and said, You shouldn't be working here, you know. You should be in the newsroom. I said, Okay. He went with it. Then I went to the newsroom, and I think it was Neil Giuseppe, who may have spotted me and said, Well, that guy, speaker said no way, he should be in the newsroom or something. Neil Giuseppe had recently been appointed news director there. And he was looking for new fresh blood and so on. He's so sort of transformed how news is covered in Trinidad. So I said, okay, and went to the newsroom. And they trained me and so on and so on. And in less than no time, I was doing the afternoon news capsule, which I did horribly. Do we have that recorded? We have that document and we see it on Instagram on it. Well, unfortunately, or unfortunately, um the old TTT was not very good post-1990 in keeping the archives. Lost a lot of it. Oh. A lot of it was moved to the new premises on Lady Young Road and so on. And um one of their former employees, Timmy Mora, is currently doing a marvelous job at retrieving some of the old stuff and um and curating them on his YouTube channel. But a lot of the news products really don't exist, I don't think. Yeah, but that's how I I got into the industry.

Corie: 24:20

I heard they say never apply for a job in a so they're ringing in true so far.

Dominic: 24:23

They just call you on the No, I've I've never applied apart from the teaching job. No.

Corie: 24:28

Interesting of mommy, because mommy makes a whole life a job application in a way, you know, how it presents it. Absolutely.

Dominic: 24:34

You know, it speaks to the importance of parenting in this country, you know, because we have a lot of people, I'm not just going to say young people, a lot of people who are merely existing and making decisions based on emotion and and and not really having a sense of direction or purpose. And perhaps what has contributed is poor parenting.

Corie: 24:58

Yeah, I want to get back to that in terms of where the society is. But you're initial going abroad to school, you went to study TV. You're thinking of being on camera at that time or the technical side of it.

Dominic: 25:10

I wasn't thinking. I was just, I just wanted to to do it. Right. So it involved both. Okay. Right? Involved, yes, the technical production. And I actually I had gone to do technical production, and then the people at the BBC put me. I went in the overseas program and they put me in the domestic program, for which there's usually about 12 people a year. You know, so I've just been blessed, really. So they moved me from that international program into the domestic program, and I was able to do both.

Corie: 25:48

I see. So I was gonna ask you about how nervous you were on camera the first time. If you go through what we go through when we come to class, we're never.

Dominic: 25:58

I suppose you're continuing to be. But if you're concentrating on I'm nervous because I'm going to be awful, then you're going to be awful. Yeah. I like the going to be awful part, right?

Corie: 26:10

Because a part of this class is that when you're called on to do something in the class, the feedback is direct.

Dominic: 26:16

It's just live and direct.

Corie: 26:19

But you know, I do find that um, even for me personally, but I see it with other other students in the class as well, where that feedback helps sort of break the tension or the ice or the air. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Dominic: 26:31

So you develop a community in the small class of supporters.

Corie: 26:34

Yeah. Yeah. It's so strange. I went to a funeral last on we on the weekend, and um when you know, in this thing, a whole bunch of people in the procession, and one of the guys was there, he was one of the deacons in the church that they were doing. Is that right? So, in the midst of everything that's happening in a funeral, he's like, yes, you know, yeah, but our community would be important. I think the media community itself is is is tight, you know, it's closeness, like it's a small group of people, and people move around because you yourself worked in several parts of media.

Dominic: 27:07

Well, yes. Um, it's just it's a well, we are a small country, you know, there's just so few media houses, well, few television houses, lots of radio. Um, so once people get a job, they're not leaving.

Corie: 27:22

And that's lots of radio. No, even back then it wouldn't have been as much radio stations.

Dominic: 27:27

Well, it changed, I think, in about 1986, 87. Oh, that's when it changed. When um um the AR Robinson gave out more broadcast licenses.

Corie: 27:38

Right, and then there was another time in the 90s, I believe, where it was then it was uh a ton. It it it expanded as well.

Dominic: 27:45

There are lots, there are lots. People criticize it a lot, and but I look at it as democratizing the media.

Corie: 27:52

You know, but social media came and did that anyway.

Dominic: 27:55

Well, yeah, it began in Trinidad at least with the broadening up of the media, you know, because previously the media was rather British, you've got to speak rather correct all the time. Right. And um it it gave an opportunity for average people to to get an opportunity to address their community.

Corie: 28:21

Well, average might be a good benchmark for me. So, how do you feel about people who because you came from a time again where there was a uh there was a discipline that went into it in terms of not just how you speak, but what went into what you say on air, there's a certain responsibility that that that channels will take. So even before social media with the kind of proliferation of media here, does it bother you that when you hear the way people speak, or the sometimes I would feel lack of research or information that goes into what is a broadcast?

Dominic: 28:52

Well, that's kind of a multi-pong. No, it doesn't bother me. Yes, it bothers me. The thing is, we've got to accept our people speaking in our language, our Trinidad English Creole or Tobago English Creole. We've got to accept it. That's the way in which we speak. What may be of concern is that it's not just about having a good quality voice and being uh a yapper. What may be of concern is that a lo uh quite a number of those people using that language on their feel that because they can talk a lot um that that is enough. So they're not reflect demonstrating that they are reading, they're informed, and they're they're forming opinions based on the headlines only, or perhaps only. The discourse on social media. So you've got to come on the radio, I think. It is in your best interest and your listeners' best interest to at least know something, some information about it, so that you can either address it or help steer the conversation that would follow. That's all. Yeah. Talk in whatever language you like.

Corie: 30:23

Yeah. Well, this is something that I battled with for some time, you know, because you go to university and you feel some pressure to adjust. And I remember me getting into lecturing. I kind of had to make a decision because I remember the initial lectures, I was struggling through the material because I was focusing so much on trying to speak properly. And eventually I was just like, What is speaking properly? Well, yeah, I learned this in your class too. But that was taught us that it's a proper way to speak.

Dominic: 30:52

Well, yes, you know, we had that whole British system of education.

Corie: 30:58

And some links to it, or straighten you out if you're insane.

Dominic: 31:02

The thing is, it was never adapted to suit our society. So we learned by rote. Yeah. You know? I mean, there were positives and there were negatives.

Corie: 31:12

But that part about the uh being uninformed or the misinformation, also, I wonder because it bothers me. So when you hear uh one of the first things I did in radio broadcasting was with Nigel Nicholson at star broadcasting as well. And I remember the first class he was just talking about reading. Again, it was it was like first class with you. I was like, okay, what are we talking about here? Why are we talking about reading so much? And uh when I started to pay attention to the group as a whole, I started to realize, okay, this is important. It's important for people to understand if this is what your career is going to be. Number one, you say in response to headlines, but I think people don't even read the headlines now, they hear somebody say something that might be related to the headlines.

Dominic: 31:53

Well, you know, when we when we describe it like that, uh, we sort of paint a picture that all of the media is like that. And it really isn't. Remember, there are different demographics, there's multiple radio stations. And if one is not your cup of tea, another one probably is. Tony Dialogue. But, you know, so they're addressing different communities of people within the island. So Boom Champion is not the I-95 audience, or it's not, you know, an uh uh Caribbean lifestyle tough music audience. So we can't, I don't think it's fair to paint it all with a wide brush.

Corie: 32:37

Yeah, well, that would I like Boom Champions' example. That is a good example. Because some of the ones, some of the ones that we're targeting the young demographic, that's where I worry because the influence of radio, of TV, of social media, I wonder what what that tomorrow is going to look like.

Dominic: 32:55

It's gonna be fine. Yeah. It's gonna be exciting, yeah, it's gonna be different. It's not going to you see. When Elvis Presley came on the scene, societies thought, oh my god, there'll be a moral decay. You know, this man is whining, is he's flipping his waist, oh society is gonna be the end. It's gonna be the end. Even when television first appeared on the scene, there was massive resistance when it was first demonstrated in in England. Again, the decay of the society, they're gonna be showing people. No, it's just going to be different. Yeah. You know? You're kind of hopeful. I I well, you know, I certainly don't intend to be one of those old people who feel that things must be the way it was. Right. You know, things changed. And it and in fact, throughout my career, I've always been looking forward to doing things, to having different perspectives on doing things. I introduced new approaches to news on television. I I introduced new new approaches to the presentation of news in the newspaper. I introduced new approaches to radio broadcasting. Now, mind you, um I'm not too happy that people didn't follow upon. But you introduced them, you didn't approach. Yes, but even on and digital media, I think um Mark Lindesi once wrote that I was perhaps I don't want to use the word pioneer, but let's say one of the early people to use long form captions on Instagram. Because remember, and at the time it was just a picture of your dinner and a little caption. Yes, one or two lines. Yeah, yeah. You know, so I'm not pessimistic at all. It's just going to be different.

Corie: 34:49

But that's that's encouraging. That's encouraging. And on those captions that you're right, it is so is edifying, you know. So that that your efforts to teach come true without being it's like the class. I'm sorry to keep going back to that, but it never feels as if you're trying to push something on everybody. And it's the same way on Instagram that that long form. So I'll I'll develop your optimism as to where we will land and so on, and what's what TV and this too shall pass.

Dominic: 35:14

The thing is, you know, we've got to we've got to keep looking for solutions. I mean, I'm not just saying it's fine, it's gonna pass, but we've got to keep looking for solutions. And remember that there's not always one solution. There are always solutions and keep dialogue, the dialogue open and so on. Yeah, maybe even change our political system. You know, maybe democracy as defined needs to change. Or the Caribbean can create its own democracy. That would be nice. His own definition of democracy. Yeah, that would be nice. Yeah, yeah. Maybe you think we think we're thinking along.

Corie: 35:52

Well, change is part of growth. Yeah, absolutely. So you going back to this newsroom now, you get trying, you they send you there, you on air, you say the first one. I wish we could we could see it because I'm sure it's not as bad as you say in the course. Yes, it is.

Dominic: 36:08

You know, it grew, it grew from at the time, um the news presentation was very uninvolved. It was straight. You know, you just said the words, you know, and over time it it evolved into being more human, you know, really connecting with the audience. You know, at first it started off, you know, this is panorama, it's very, very correct and so on. So it has evolved over time, and now it's more human. Yeah. And you say that you were taking chances with that. You're taking a lot of. Yes, yes, yes. In fact, I was I faced a lot of criticism when I was, when I started to coach the younger news presenters to emote. Yeah. You know, to show that there's a happy moment or there's a sad moment, even use your hands very carefully and so on. And now everybody's doing it. Yeah. They don't know where it started. No, they know.

Corie: 37:11

How do you have the what it takes then as a young person going into it to take the chances? Where did you see the change coming from? Like it's just something you thought of. You know.

Dominic: 37:25

I I I you see these captions we carry at the bottom of of news now. I borrowed that from MTV. MTV was doing it. And I said, we can have multiple points of interest on the screen. Let's do that. And I did that. And you tried it. And now everyone's doing it. Yeah. It's a standard note. Yeah, you know. This is early in your career? Uh not so early. Okay. It's one of the things. I always had this vision of doing it Japanese style, where there's not just this bar, there's several bars and points of information and so on. I'm dying to see it done. You know, I I I I broached the idea to someone and you know, and they said yes, and then disappeared. It takes work to get it done, you know, to convince the team to get it done and so on. I but I'm convinced that even if let's say you're carrying this broadcast, right? You may have a sidebar that gives a profile on the person, uh, another another piece of information here, another piece of information at this side. So there are multiple points of interest because because given the way mu media is very fast now and rapid, people get bored quickly. No one is really, I don't think, sitting down looking at the TV or their phone anymore to watch this 90-minute interview. No. Right? So you've got to provide other points of interest for them. Because pretty soon you might even be going out of doors and adding other kinds of videos and so on. So I'm saying on that screen, you could add multiple points of interest that will keep your viewer interested in your product. That's what I want to see. David, you set this up. No, no, no, no. Okay, David didn't tell this. I would love to do it. I would love to do it. You know, I could see that on the newscast now. In the newscast. Oh my goodness. And they're just thinking of covering the story. Yeah. And that is the thing, you know. Um, sometimes in newsrooms, um, we are so concerned in covering the agenda events that we're not thinking of the other ancillary things, you know, like the visual presentation or the follow-up or the deeper side. Some people are doing it, huh? Um I'm so excited. Yeah, something they will change. So you see, my excitement hasn't away in my old age. Especially when it's the retirement, you see in the retirement. Yeah, so I borrowed that from NTV, and when I went for the idea and people say, You're going to put an entertainment thing and say, Yes. But you see, I was very fortunate in that my superiors had confidence in me. Right. You know, and I was very fortunate to work with um eventually CCN, which proved itself to stand by the principles of independent journalism. It was never risk-averse. Try if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. Yeah.

Corie: 40:35

You know, and doubt CCN for you would have been at what stage of your career? How long you were at TTT before Lydia?

Dominic: 40:42

Well, I think I was at TTT. Um my memory isn't very good. But I think I was at TT for 17 years. I think I remember that. And then I moved to Trinidad Broadcasting into radio, where I went into the newsroom as one of the newsroom executives, and then I moved on to being the program manager. And I had to I had to program four radio stations at the time. And I'm something I'd never done, you learn quickly. I was asked, and then I went to I think I w I went to TV six and I got vexed one day and left. And I was I and by the time I got home, I got a call, come to the Guardian.

Corie: 41:34

Yeah? Yeah.

Dominic: 41:36

I went to the Guardian and I was edit as uh uh I was editor-in-chief there. In fact, um I've never told anybody this, but when they were starting up um their TV station, it was uh in a discussion with the then managing director, I uh that I came up with a name. Really? Yeah, CNC. But you see, I'm a team player and the boss has to take the credit. So, you know, he went and he gave the suggested a name and everybody loved it and so on and so on. But it's on a little tet-to-that we had that I came up with a name, but it doesn't matter. And and then um and then I got a call while sitting at my desk one day, but they like to join us and meant it meant to TV six. Well, we went back to CCN. So whoever gave a road. But first I was head of news at TV station, and then I went as group head of news of OCM. Oh, but it would have not been OCM yet, which would have been the TV six and the express, all their news. That is true, yeah. That was independent before OCM wanted eventually. And the Express is very interesting, has a very interesting history, you know, because um it was really the first black-owned, well, not the first black-owned, but in in modern history um newspaper. Yeah, and at the time the white establishment boycotted, didn't want to advertise with them and so on, and Ken Gordon was very strong in getting it done. So it um come came out of a history of struggle, persistence, and independence. Yeah. And you had the heart of that? You you no no no, I wasn't. I mean, I joined much, much later.

Corie: 43:19

Oh, it was it was much later. So having done so much across different types of media, including social media, no. You have a preference for which one you prefer to.

Dominic: 43:28

Oh, I love them all. Really? Would you believe? You know, radio is terribly exciting, at least the radio we did was terribly exciting. Now it has moved into jukeboxes, really. Um except i9 5.5 FM, which is primarily a talk station. Right. Um, but it's terribly exciting. Um I worked with Joan Spodera at Trend Broadcasting Limited in the news, and we did some cross-regional programming where we did live, um, uh a weekly live program talking to newsmakers across the Caribbean. Um, each station would prepare a feature, and then we would have a dialogue and or covering radios now don't cover floods. Right. What's happening with the country during a period of flood? We would go live. You know, at the time you had the whole telephone directory. So there's flood in Couva. Look for names at Couva. Uncle, any person at Cuba, what's the experience like the Met Office and so on and so on. You look for 639 or any 639, you know, and so you're actually talking to the people as they're experiencing it now, you know? Got it. So radio can be terribly exciting, and so to television can be very exciting. I mean, one of the um really important moments, I think, was when Dana Citahal was assassinated and we went live from six o'clock in the morning at on TV six and did an almost marathon session, you know, really keeping in touch with what was happening when there was the state of emergency and so on, keep that dialogue going. It can be terribly informative and and exciting.

Corie: 45:20

Yeah, I can imagine the background, what that's like for us when we hear it is polished, you know, it seems as though it's so organized and you know everything that you came on to talk about. So yeah, I I heard you talking about getting a script and seeing it while you're seeing it for the first time while you can. Oh, it happens.

Dominic: 45:35

Yeah, it happens. Yeah, you know, news breaks, and you've got a Dominic. We've just put a story in there, it's coming up next. You've got to read it as though you knew it before.

Corie: 45:47

Yeah, and you looked so well. David trying to get me to get one of these ear pieces to his kicking and screaming.

Dominic: 45:56

Who's that? David Wears? David Wares. You know, I worked with him at the at the at the Trinidad Guardian. I heard was he like this? Was that was he like this then? Well, he was a go-getter. So yeah, that was the answer I was hoping for.

Speaker 1: 46:11

Yes, yes, yes.

Corie: 46:14

No, uh you wrote up I-95 is one of those that was interesting to me. I guess uh get my own sort of young view of media at the time, and just maybe the way I looked at life is that I see a person as this. So it's really I just box things in a lot. So, and the newscasters for me growing up were people who basically read the news. We don't we don't know your opinion. We we get a little of your personality, but not it's it's it's it's it's direct.

Dominic: 46:43

Well, yeah, I've never been into opinion journalism. It's not something I want to do. No, you don't like doing it? I mean, I can. I saw. But it's not my lane. And it may be one because I have made that firm decision, or it may be if I if I go on a psychiatrist's chair, it may be that I've gotten too many death threats from politicians and all kinds of people over stories that we covered that I never um put myself in that lane. Seriously, from politicians and it's oops.

Corie: 47:25

They're still alive for covering stories.

Dominic: 47:28

Shall we move on?

Corie: 47:30

That is wild. That is wild. Yeah, so so I asked, I asked that because of the opinion part, because uh on I-95 there was a Sunday show that was two, three hours long where I felt like we got a lot of your personality. It was interviews, mostly those people who were coming on, uh-huh. And it I felt like you get to know Dominic a lot more.

Dominic: 47:51

Yes, well, radio is yeah, it's more well. Let me say, um, on magazine programs, they're a little more relaxed. So, yes, you get to show more of your interests and your personality and so on. So, on radio, I'm a different person. Yeah, okay, good.

Corie: 48:06

But like that is not just me who's thinking that. Because um you find a lot of you hear it on radio now where people take, as you talk about calling people in, people will do a news story and do contributors, you know. I-95, the callers make it so interesting. Yeah, and um, I do feel as though like Dale and Tony being examples, we we got to like I when I hear their origin story, it was really Dale coming in to read the news, and then Tony's like, Yeah, where do you think about this? So I always wondered if you had the temptation to say, Okay, I cover stories, and now I'm gonna talk as Dominic about what I think about this and connecting the history or things you've seen before.

Dominic: 48:44

Well, I could be wrong, but at least at the time in which I functioned there primarily I thought that the newsreader that the the the viewer would regard the newsreader as distanced from those things. If but once you start sharing opinions, then the viewer of the news may think that the news that you are telling me is colored by your opinion. Yeah, more than threats. Okay, I got you. You know, so I am that's why I avoid it, really. Okay.

Corie: 49:25

Well, this is my selfish request. So now that you're controlling your own social media in retirement, we want to see you talk about some of the things outside of the caption. Come on camera, talk about some of the stories, talk about because some of the things you post in you were there, you know. This is so I ain't that old, buddy. Some of them, some of them. I think it would be a great thing to see.

Dominic: 49:48

You know, yes, people keep asking me to do it. Okay. Um, but why don't they do it? Yeah. They seem to have the time, but they are not dominating. It takes a lot of time, you know. Takes a lot of time. And I think I use my time efficiently enough. I'm not going, I don't think at this point I want to add something else to it. And maybe as I add more years to the autumn of my years, maybe I want to be a little lazy too. It's possible. Yeah, that's not a word anybody would use to describe it easy. But you know, um, really and truly, my career has required that I be at at the forefront in the camera. But I would not make a decision to be in the forefront. So that's the dichotomy of people who live my kind of have my kind of career. I'm not putting myself in the forefront because I want to be on camera. It just was just part of being that way. Well, it's part of the of the job requirement of the communication process. Right. So to do that means I want to present myself as a historian or uh, you know, expert on X subject and so on. I'm not any of this. You know, so you know and and I I think also people want you to be honest. And so that's my honesty, really.

Corie: 51:43

It's fair, it's fair, it's fair. No, being on camera, you get to be uh a star, a celebrity. You know, you're you're you know, yes.

Dominic: 51:52

I hate that term in uh I don't think it is really uh appropriate for a small developing country. No, no, because unless you really find it, because we are really using a sort of Hollywood definition of a star, you know, so on and so on. And it doesn't work here. I mean, of course, these are people who may be upfront in the forefront, but they are people who are making meaningful contributions for the development of this society, not that they're living the celebrity life. No, right? And and media doesn't make you rich, eh? So the two don't go together. You can say island famous, you can say island known. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, we need to be selfish. Who knows me beyond the geographical space of Trinidad and Tobago?

Corie: 52:48

What you can just select like a word in the other. That's true. Those are things they look forward to, like a national.

Dominic: 53:00

Yeah, I didn't ask for it. I'm sure, like the jobs, really, you know.

Corie: 53:08

That's something you like was it an ambition? Like when you're young coming up in this, did you see yourself as being media icon, Dominica? You personally working towards you know, like these tools.

Dominic: 53:20

It's such a Hollywood question. No, you know, no, no. I mean, who thinks of that? What? Uh I didn't even think I I didn't even think I could conceive what this age looks like. No, the thing is, I my uh my constant goal was really to be my best. That's all. Just to be my best.

Corie: 53:43

Yeah, something I hear you encourage a group with often. And something you said stood out so much with when you're on camera in particular, or when you deliver something like speak as though you're talking to one person.

Dominic: 53:55

Yeah, you know, that's uh because it's a very intimate kind of media, you know, when you're talking into at least from the studio, to hide there talking to that one person. Yeah, see how easy is go on and off.

Corie: 54:13

It's something else to see. So in studio, some selfish questions I have to ask now. This is where I get the bonus class, right? Uh uh, interviews. I I I saw you. There's one interview that stood out in particular to me because uh at that time we we knew you as, as I said, staple in the media for a long time. Then we didn't see you for a gap, and you were back at TV6, uh uh head of the group. And there was one time that Anan Ram Logan came into the studio and he was during the news broadcast, if I remember right, which uh we could probably discuss how thoughts on that too. Uh but if I remember right, you were not doing the broadcast at that time, but when it came back on, it was you and him. Was it something that you decided you wanted to take on because of the way it was done?

Dominic: 55:04

Well, that was during a state of emergency and we had made a collective decision in the newsroom that um when when updates are required, updates would be done. It was a special period, and the nation needed to be kept informed by officials of the government and the police and so on and so on. And if they were available with breaking information, we would do an interview within the newscast. And so I assumed the responsibility of doing those interviews. I did all the interviews.

Corie: 55:35

Oh, okay, okay. So it wasn't uh um I read it as being one of those situations. I remember there was a point in time where Patrick Manning had gone into a radio station.

Dominic: 55:42

Oh no, no, no. It was one of those situations. No, no, no, no, no. We interviewed Martin Daly, we interviewed Keith Rowley, we interviewed a whole Endeavour Rampisa and a whole host of people. Oh, so the space was there for that.

Corie: 55:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was not the most pleasant interview, it's not like these podcasts where you relax and you drink something, and it was getting a little bit tense. And it's something there's something that you did, and I I don't know if it's just second nature to you or how it felt in the moment where you put a nice little pause in between and you said, please don't be rude. It's something that you you're just comfortable, you're nervous in the moment. What was your feeling when you when that's happening?

Dominic: 56:24

We were talking man to man. Equal to equal. I was the interviewer, he was the politician. I dealt with it accordingly. He was not offended. People thought he was, but he was not offended. He understood he was doing his job and I was doing my job. We had a laugh at the end of it. You heard a little bit of it, it bled out when it when it fades away here. He wasn't scolding me or anything. We had a good laugh after it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know. I think that um when professionals regard another person as a professional, they accept that you're not doing a celebrity interview, you're not doing a Hollywood interview, you're doing a journalistic interview. And they respect you if you asked the hard questions. And I think he did. Yeah. Yeah. And that's very gracious. He's he was very gracious.

Corie: 57:29

Okay, well, it's good. Didn't look that way on camera.

Dominic: 57:32

People interpreted it differently. Yes, yes, it's the pause. I stood my ground, and and at that time, stand your ground meant something different. Maybe it's still not.

Corie: 57:49

So, in those moments, you as a young journalist starting to do interviews initially. Do you see yourself or did you ever go through a phase where you see this person as larger than life? Selfish question again, because sometimes I have people here who David is getting to come here who I'm like, yeah, I'm hearing this voice on TV or on records for the longest while and now I have to try to stay focused on just be their equal when I'm not.

Dominic: 58:14

The thought never occurred to me. No. I mean, I've interviewed from presidents to movie stars to big, you know, international singers and so on and so on. They've come in my territory, baby. Answer my questions. It just never occurred to me. Yeah. It just uh maybe it was youthful arrogance. I don't know.

Corie: 58:32

I don't have my stats all. You know, never occurred to me. And then you bring it up things like you getting threatened and so on. You you as for you as a job, you're going out, it's it's based on issues.

Dominic: 58:45

Well, I mean, one one had to be realistic, you know. Um my company had to take me out of the country a few times and because the police had given them certain information and so on, and so on, and so on. It happens. There are current reporters who have had those kind of experiences, yeah. Yeah, you're just saying it happens, like well, yeah. Well it was it wasn't it wasn't nice to go through, you know. Maybe some of those people still are gunning it for me, the soul garage. I don't know. I I don't think so, but yeah.

Corie: 59:24

Yeah, hopefully not, hopefully not, especially with Trendana's got no.

Dominic: 59:29

Well, you know, we did some really daring, breaking, investigative stories at the time that really um touched some nerves. Um people think that the media is just about glamour and asking some questions and doing the stories, but they don't take into account the huge responsibility and weight uh that you carry on your shoulder. You know. Yeah, but that was then.

Corie: 1:00:03

Well, there's some other weight now, because we can get weighty part here. Uh, from my own experience has been where, you know, trying to cover current affairs, I find to be personally difficult because I started to like there was one time I made a decision that I'm not going to talk about crime anymore. Uh, again, because of my own maybe just cynicism has stopped talking about politics as a whole. Uh, just because the politics started to get more and more cynical. And I just felt like it was not we have serious matters that are not being taken seriously by the people who we're asking to be in charge. And then the crime started to become very, very depressing, you know. You're starting to see spades of, you know, you go through a phase where this thing happened to women or this, you know, and it started to become personally heavy for me. Is that something you go through being in media? Like you take on the stories?

Dominic: 1:00:54

Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I somehow I developed the skill of to compartmentalize emotion. You know? So my decision has always been: is this something that the public want to know, ought to know, or are interested in? What is the most interesting story, or what are the most interesting, uh, important stories? So this is not, I mean, my first, maybe it's because the very first story I covered was a horrible suicide where um a woman had leapt from a tower on Independence Square onto the ground and and the head was flattened and brains. I mean, that's the first story I covered, you know. So I had to like quickly divorce emotion from the whole thing, you know. So, but um, but cynicism may well be a good thing, especially you're you're working in digital media, not necessarily in legacy media. So your cynicism could be a good uh point from which to ask the relevant questions, you know. If you're not cynical, then you're what? Then you're accepting. I suppose. Or questioning. So don't knock it, work with it.

Corie: 1:02:21

Yeah. I think the boxing it's also the part for me that I have to work on because I take it home. It's not it's not just on camera. Yeah, it starts to become, you know, you're on the streets and it's like well, yes.

Dominic: 1:02:31

I mean, you've got to you've gotta watch your uh psycho psych psycho your mind because yes, there was a time when I I thought I may be getting a nervous breakdown over the state of Trinidad and Tobago because yes, I was at home went home thinking about it, be so worried. And then I had to figure out, you know, that's not my lane, that's not my responsibility, and and roll it back, roll it back, roll it back. Gotcha. Yeah, yeah. There was a time I was really, really worried about Trinidad and Tobago.

Corie: 1:02:57

Yeah, it's encouraging to hear you say everything's gonna be alright. It's gonna be alright. There's that's heavy, those words carry a lot. I think it's good to hear somebody.

Dominic: 1:03:06

You know, there's some young people entering politics now that are going to be real change makers. Yeah. You know, they're going to be real change makers, but the process is going to be slow.

Corie: 1:03:15

Yeah, I think it's in all fields. I feel like younger people now they have a way of looking at the world. I think they you know the the Absolutely, absolutely just have more information is close. And they they both they they feel more, I feel of my generation for sure, you know, they feel more of what they you know the empathy for people who yeah, and they've got to have opportunities to speak out, not just not just being um keyboard warriors.

Dominic: 1:03:39

But um as a man of the 70s, which was a time of speaking out of so on, um I think young people now perhaps need to feel assured and comfortable that they can speak out, they can protest, they can let their views known, be known. Um unfortunately, I don't think there is really uh emerging leader or leaders among the young communities who can direct them to this those microphones. Oh, I see. Is there leaders in the media space? No, no, no. People like you know, we had McCandel Dagger, we had Dave Dabro, we had, you know, I mean, remember they were in their twenties at the time. You know? Who are they who are the emerging leaders among the young people now? I mean, there was this young guy I saw at UE named Kobe Sandy, I think he's now a councilman somewhere. Very impressive at the time when I saw him. Um I don't know if he's into party politics now or just so on. But there are young people like that who have very powerful thoughts and so on.

Corie: 1:04:58

They just need the spaces in which social media is one of those spaces because now you can be in your 70s to now in terms of what it'll uh take to sort of get people together and create a movement. So much of it had to be done in university and places where people gather. Yeah, but now it might be happening and we're not seeing some of it, you know.

Dominic: 1:05:21

Yes, okay. Yeah, at least we hope so. But they've got to also create the spaces. Yeah, yeah. You know, just get on pavement and shout. Yeah. We hope that works. We've got a University of Woodford Square, you know, you got mango tree. Talking to the mango tree. You know, part of our problem is communication. And um, sometimes you get too officious that it influences even our lives. The Ministry of Health and Ministries and so on should not depend only on large official community hall meetings and so on. But they should get teams of people to go and meet the guys on the block, talk to them on the mango tree, talk to them, you know, around the corner by the shop and so on. That's where you really reach into the community. They're not coming out to this big national consultation and so on, you know. They're saying that somebody else will go there, but you've got to get into the community and talk to the fellows under the Margot tree.

Corie: 1:06:30

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That might be one of the things I was missing. So even in the national consultation, I see it as like 95.5. You open the lines, you're gonna get the same callers calling, and they have an opinion on every topic that you open the line, and those consultations, you see the same thing. The same people go to the My Equality Center and that answer bagel. And that's good. But uh, I agree 100%. Like sometimes the the loss of touch with what's happening on the ground, if you could put it like that, is yeah, uh it's I I feel like it's it's worrying. So you've seen some eras in this country and seen some of the change that we've we've gone through, and still at this point hopeful that we'll be we'll be okay in the long run. Uh, from the standpoint of the media's contribution to development, is it that internally in the media with all the the areas you've been, you you see the media houses taking it like as a responsibility they have for where the country lands, or is it just presenting what the country is doing?

Dominic: 1:07:30

Well, no, absolutely. I think they do see it as a responsibility, and we've got to see that on the editorial pages. Remember, the newspaper not only reports what's happening, but it also takes positions. And they've got a daily editorial. And they also provide opportunities for various voices to express their views through the columns. You know, the problem is, would media survive? Remember, there were years in which it was thought that the newspaper industry was dying. Right? Yes. Newsprint was getting too expensive. Um there were not enough timber to produce the news and so on. And then a man called Donald Trump came on the scene and he created news, not only news, but newses, that give the newspaper industry more life in America and so on, and that sort of really brought life back. But reality is setting in now, and I think that um, especially in in small island territories like Trinidad Tobago, yeah. And with the advent of digital media and so on, where there are greater opportunities for businesses to promote their products and advertise, there's perhaps less advertising on in the traditional media, which has always used an advertising model, and have perhaps been pretty late in getting into the digital world. So they have uh an audience that has become accustomed to getting their news free. Right? On on digital media, digital social media. That it's difficult now to ask these people to pay to come to my website and get the news. And if people are advertising less. I mean, there is a newspaper that's about to fold. Yeah. Yeah. So we just saw Loop T T, which is a lot of people. Yeah. I was surprised by it. Like some of the media stations are really operating on skeleton staff. The audience still expects the same quality and quantity of work. Um uh trimming costs desperately, relieving staff. So we'll see what will survive. I think radio will certainly survive. Television, at least here, I think. I could be wrong. I hope I'm wrong, faces an uncertain future. Or it may exist in a different form. And newspapers, well, I'd probably get a digital form of that.

Corie: 1:10:19

Yeah, I guess so. That's that's where it is.

Dominic: 1:10:21

Yeah.

Corie: 1:10:21

Like even with um, I've seen where the reporters themselves, some of their social media pages, because I still maybe it's just because of the area I come from. If something happens, I feel a little more comfortable if I see you post it or No.

Dominic: 1:10:34

Well, the thing is for the average person, they should not be unaware of what's happening, what's being said on social media, but you should try and at least try and verify. Yeah, try and verify. So, how do you try and verify? You check the credible sources. Credible sources. You know, sometimes people send me things and I Google it first to make sure. Before I share it, if I share it at all.

Corie: 1:10:59

Just check from a credible source and you're okay. I've seen the credible source shift to the personality more than the the media house within the last five, ten years, maybe.

Dominic: 1:11:09

But that may well be, and that is a matter of confidence, if you have confidence in that. In the individual, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Corie: 1:11:15

So let me go back in time, not say at least the the topic is always saying interviews that you're not like talking about. I hear talk about it recently where you said you're you're tired of talking about the coup. And yeah, I remember you saying that um a part of the reason is that the government, nothing is happening in in terms of there's always this discussion every July. We we see it. There's uh a documentary, a backstory, uh, this one side of the story, and that one side of the story. You see it covered surprise, well, surprisingly for me a little bit that people who people so interested in the coup as a story. I thought that we would get to this point where younger people come up and they like when I hear the 1970 revolution, I know of it, but I wasn't there, so it feels like it's not a big story to me. So I felt like we have enough young people now born after 90 and stuff, but people seem to be very, very interested in it. Well, and they ought to be.

Dominic: 1:12:08

It's part of our history, so they ought to be. When I said that I was fed up, talking about it. I was fed up because I think the country was fed up that Abu Bakr got away. But more so I think that the non-political hostages were treated badly afterwards. They were ignored. Um their families were ignored. Um there was no attempt to follow through on psychological evaluation. Um there are some of them, at least two I know of at TTT, who suffered long-term psychological problems, uh, one of whom died under very traumatic psychological circumstances. Uh and also young people are sort of unaware of what happened and or why it happened. And at the time when I got the call to make a comment, I felt that after so many years. Why are you calling me again? There are so many other people who were held hostage whom you have never asked for a comment. You know, you're coming to the so-called celebrities all the time. Oh, come on, you know. I mean, there was a young man at Radio Trinidad who was shot multiple times. You know, there was Emmett Hennessy who was shot. And you know, they went to hospital and this young man uh suffered a lot. Um the staff at Radio Trinidad who were not held hostage but who faced terrible gunfire um were never highlighted much in the media, you know, sufficiently. So they went through their own trauma and so on. So give them a voice. Maybe they need to ventilate, you know, and get it out of their system too. So I think that is what really I was a little miffed about.

Corie: 1:14:39

Maybe let me ask from the standpoint of uh being in media that long, you thinking of it in terms of how you would have covered it if you had to put it together in terms of how great. You would have covered it. Yeah.

Dominic: 1:14:50

Well, in a while I was in it, I thought I was covering it up. But you know, we've had no experiences, but cool. I had no experience with that. So there was this gunmen in the studio, and I thought I was in the middle of the biggest story of my life. So that's only story. Yeah, I was in the story, so I was taking notes. What? Imagine that. You know, on the first evening of the of the co attempt, and people keep forgetting to say attempt, it wasn't a coup. First evening of the court attempt when the gunman came in and they put us to sit on the ground and so on. I kept looking at the time, looking at the time, kept getting closer to seven. You know, you're interrupting my newscast. So I knew I didn't have time to write a story or type it out. So I kept rehearsing in my mind, how am I going to say the story? You know, I was the sentences and you know, yes. And then they herded us into the studio and then we saw the back, and then we realized what it was, and so on. And and he was sitting at my news desk. Nice. And I went and I stood at the edge of the desk while he was sitting there with my notepad taking notes. I don't think he quite liked that. No, because you know, I thought I was in the middle of it, it would finish in no time tonight, you know. And of course, I don't know what happened to the notes after that, because there were a lot of bombing and shooting afterwards.

Corie: 1:16:26

Yeah. So being in the space and covering many stories, knowing where the country is at a point in time, you you all about England that's something coming in in the media design? At the time? Yeah, before.

Dominic: 1:16:38

Like, oh, yeah, there were a lot of rumblings and yes. I think the country had a sense that there was going to be an explosion of some kind. The form one couldn't imagine. The form one could imagine that he would take over the Red House and TTT and so on. That one, I don't think so, but yes. You remember it was a time of great austerity. The IMF was here, and and I don't think ANR Robinson was the greatest communicator. You know, I don't think the country really understood why the austerity measures had to be taken and so on. So there was a lot of uh civil public servants had lost their cost of living allowance. You know, it was it was tough financially. And I don't think they I think that the NAR at the time may have been a bit arrogant. Uh certainly didn't communicate with the masses enough, as happened with the PNM. They lost touch with the people recently, they lost touch with the people and it exploded. Mind you, um, Abaka at the time exploited that situation for his own situation. So things got conflated.

Corie: 1:17:55

Yeah, and it's such an important thing for us, you know, even as you reflect on it, to talk about the role that media in whatever form plays. Because look at how Robinson was treated in history. Like in hindsight, he's seen as this person who saved the country, like pull us back from the brink, put all these measures in place. Like when you hear people talk about him now.

Dominic: 1:18:18

I also Well, one cannot deny the greatness of the man, okay? And one cannot deny his bravery. Um he certainly was sincere, and he thought he was doing the best for the country. But he was also arrogant. You know, and and and sometimes it may not just be the head of the government, but it could well be with whom that person surrounds themselves and some of those people who would interact more with the society. The fault is not necessarily in one, reside in one place.

Corie: 1:18:58

Yeah, those are the real the government. Yeah. So a couple of questions come out of that. You used you said the non-political hostages. You didn't at the time see yourself as a political hostage. To me, anybody who was a hostage at that time was political. You separated.

Dominic: 1:19:12

Well, I mean, there was uh the political circumstance. What I meant is those who were not employed in the political environment.

Corie: 1:19:18

So were you all in terms of the aftermath and uh whether it's therapy or things provided for you in terms of helping you recover because of the role that it played?

Dominic: 1:19:28

A psychologist came once. And you know, um a man coming through a traumatic thing. If you come talk to me, you're still trying to song strong like a man. You understand? You're not saying, oh God, uh so he met once and he probably said, Oh, he's cool, you know, he's talking strong. And that was the end of that. Nobody, I mean, my wife would tell me I was tossing and turning every night, I didn't know about it, you know. So there was no follow-through. And you know, while I may have found ways to deal with that, uh there were other people who didn't or couldn't. Yeah. So, and then again, um, also, at least for the staff at TTT, um we were taken to the Hilton Hotel. Or everybody gathered at the Hilton Hotel. Um and and then there was a staff meeting. This is when? This is at what point? Uh this was after we were rescued and so on. Okay? So from Marval Road? Uh from Marval Road, I think we went to Camp Ogden. And sometime afterwards, staff gathered at at the Hilton. Some big space there was, I think, on the rooftop somewhere. But there was a staff meeting and we were taken to the staff meeting to discuss how do we get back to work. No one said, because you're going to the staff meeting, you don't know, you know, because everybody's asked to gather. So no one said, Well, you know, hostages and so on, you all stay here, we'll take care of you and so on. The rest of the staff. We all went in, and there we are sitting in the staff meeting. Also, this is also the people who weren't there at all. Yes, yes, yes, yes. It was just amazing, so insensitive, you know. So we were re-traumatized.

Corie: 1:21:26

Of course. Because in the moment you see in the absurdity, in it like you. Absolutely, absolutely.

Dominic: 1:21:33

Absolutely. It was but you know, we had no experience with that kind of event. So, you know, all is forgiven.

Corie: 1:21:41

Uh yeah, all is forgiven, but it was something that we we we we ought to like you say, ventilate from several different points of view, not necessarily publicly either. It's not necessary, it's just just to treat that differently because the age we live in now and the way mental health is treated and and and so on from corporate to across across the board. That you know I want to say that couldn't happen now, but I'm frightened to say that.

Dominic: 1:22:04

Well, now it has become the norm to have programs in crisis management and all those things, part of the managerial process and so on. So maybe out of all of those things came those things. We didn't have the experience. I suppose, I suppose. You gotta experience something awful to get better.

Corie: 1:22:25

I guess. Yeah. Your viewpoint was that the political hostages were treated differently. They had more access or more help or anything coming out of the coup, from your knowledge.

Dominic: 1:22:38

One gets that feeling, one doesn't know. I see. You know, one doesn't know. There's no communication. The government just sends you home, and that's it. That's unbelievable to me. I don't think so. I don't even know if they send you home. You find your way home, I think. That's what it was. No, man. What if this crazy?

Corie: 1:23:01

Really? You know. So you're on the bus route. You do the people just trying to.

Dominic: 1:23:06

Well, I think my wife came for me or something.

Corie: 1:23:12

Okay, now I understand the response to this. I've read it. Yeah, because those are the stories that people need to need to hear.

Speaker 1: 1:23:20

Yeah.

Corie: 1:23:20

Yeah. A couple more questions on this. In terms of what your in the moment, you have your notes and you have to go and read this thing.

Dominic: 1:23:32

I wouldn't have been reading news at that time. But it was a point where you were on camera. Oh, I see, I see. Well, um, Mr. Ba Babaka, who was a really he was in fact a a charming man. He spoke very respectfully. I mean, I can tell you, I can kill you very respectfully. Um but um he always referred to me as Mr. Kalipassad. And he said to me, Mr. Kalipassad, Mr. Kalipassad, the people are expecting you to give them the news. And you know, you go and tell them that the police and army are shooting at one another and there's chaos out there, and so on, and so on. So it was he who told me to go on. And I did, but I used journalistic language that offended him. Um so from day one, he defined me as the defiant one. Indeed. Well, in the back room among the people that were there, because I didn't just go on and say what he said to say. I didn't just I I and say, well, the police and army are fighting and so on and so on. I said, we have been told to say. I thought I was disguising it very artfully. I thought he wouldn't pick up on my little subtle thing. But he was a brilliant, yes, very charismatic.

Corie: 1:25:14

Um before then, you knew you knew him. No, no.

Dominic: 1:25:18

I mean, we one would have covered the news and so on. We never conversed. Okay. But it was then one was able to see how the young men regarded him. They were young men who were there, who, by the way, didn't know they were coming to a coup. They were just told, get in the van, and when they reached the destination, they say, Hey, look the gun, follow us, right? But the young men really looked up to him as a demigod who was infallible. I mean, I recall an instance in which there was gunfire coming through glass window, the corridor, and so on. It would die out and then start again, died, start again. And Abu Bakr walked along that corridor, chest held high. Not a bullet hit him. And then three young men said, You see? You see, that's our leader. Yeah.

Corie: 1:26:15

That's his indoctrination.

Dominic: 1:26:17

But he also would tell us, you know, he'd also would tell us, gentlemen, we are keeping you here for your safety. We can't let you out there, police and army of army fighting one another. We can't send you out there to be shot. So he was telling us that we care for you. You know, and unless you had your head on, you could be convinced. He could be very convincing. Yeah, you had to tell yourself all the time that this man is talking BS. Yeah.

Corie: 1:26:49

And you saying that, but maybe you know, because I know him, you know, know him around Gurbin St. James. So that is where he described. He's very tall. Like people may not remember. He was very tall, very he walk slow, he talked deliberately, and it could be endaring. Yeah. So maybe other people in the room might be buying in or feel like they're protected by them.

Dominic: 1:27:08

Yes, these were young men who were in search for a better life, they had unfortunate circumstances and so on. He had them on the compound. I suppose he helped them survive and so on. Uh so they looked up to him, really.

Corie: 1:27:23

You get any sense from other people in TTT that younger people might have felt the same who would have been working there, and this man stormed the place starting to believe or buy into it? Because younger people at TTT. Yeah, so he all knew it was what it was.

Dominic: 1:27:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No. But interestingly, um, there was one of the gunmen who had made himself known to the staff at TTT months before. He used to come by selling Tupperware. So he made friends with all the ladies, and he had free access to the building. So he used to walk along the corridors, going into every office, selling his Tupperware, and so on, and so on. He was obviously casing the joint. Oh my god. So he knew the layout of the place. Yeah. Who knows Amway was connected to the city? Exactly. It wasn't Amway, it wasn't Amway. But you know, when we saw him, we realized, hey, I know him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know? Yeah. But um years, years, years later, I had two instances where one of the gunmen came up to my car window. I was at a gas station and he said to me, You don't remember me? As though I was supposed to say, Hey, how are you doing? Nice to see you, man. He said, You don't remember me? I said, No. He said, I was the man with the gun standing outside the door when you all go by the bomb. And I am in complete shock. What am I supposed to say? Hey, how are you doing? You know, so and he saw the consternation on my face, and then he said, Don't worry, that was a madman. That was a madman. And then I think sometime later I was at home and I got a phone call from one of the men who became a very well-respected member in the sporting football community. And he called me to apologize.

Corie: 1:29:32

Oh, he did? Really?

unknown: 1:29:35

Oh.

Dominic: 1:29:36

You know, I suppose people grow and mature and come to certain realizations, and he apologized. I see.

Corie: 1:29:44

Well, the first one you're talking about might have been, you know, it's it speaks to the um that same youth that you're talking about. Because again, being in St. James, I saw some of it. These were children, youths, youths, young, young people. I I I I myself well be. Of course, you didn't know, but um you saw youths in our community gravitate to what was happening at the mosque. Like I had Mohammed Muakel here, who uh yeah, he was born well, he wasn't born there, he moved there very, very small. His father was involved in the attempted coup, and uh you know, he talks about he spoke about it well, like why people were indoctrinated to it and what why people they believed in it, they believed they were in a different states and so on. Some of the younger people I mean they they felt like if it was a sort of a savior thing.

Dominic: 1:30:31

Well, you know, sometimes in life there's a sort of duality. People have good intentions and people have evil intentions, and sometimes both. You know, so I mean he did provide for his community education, a place of belonging, stability, all those things. So life is complicated.

Corie: 1:30:58

Yeah, the duality is there with with all of us, and you know, you you that that idea of um you said when we started off, you know, Trinidad is small, the place is you know, so it it it boggles my mind that the things like therapy and support wouldn't be provided because somebody had to be able to tell you at that point in time there's a chance that you could bounce up people. Abubaka was alive for many years after.

Dominic: 1:31:21

So why is 1990 so interested in interesting to you that it's taking up so much time and discussing?

Corie: 1:31:27

It's one of those things where everybody says, Where you was joining the coup party.

Dominic: 1:31:33

So you were the you were the cool parties and so on. No, I was young, I I was home. I wish I could. I could see you as a coup party.

Corie: 1:31:40

I can do a coup party right now.

Dominic: 1:31:44

But that is that's is something else to hear your perspective on, especially what happened after. Well, you know, child has a wonderful coping mechanism, you know. We uh we are criticized for party mentality and so on, but it's it really protects us.

Corie: 1:32:01

Yeah, I suppose, I suppose, yeah. We have an annual party that gets us to reset every time. Tell me, David, what are we missing? Just to tell me, P Minute. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Again, also this one. Yeah, thanks. David fell upon the cool talk to weeks ago. It's enough of this. So uh you there was a there was a little bit of a gap for us in the public where we weren't sealing Mr. Khalipa's ad. It's something you had stepped away from media, you went and do something else or so, or you were just in the background. I don't know what gap you're talking about. No, maybe it's just being on air versus being in the background.

Dominic: 1:32:32

Well, yeah, there was a time when I wouldn't have been on air every day. I had to focus more on my managerial responsibilities. But no, I mean this year is 50 years I've been on the air. It's kind of the longest anybody has ever been. So, you know, how you celebrate as did the gray-haired old man is still accepted, I think. Hopefully. I think. Thank you for CCN for still having me. You know, probably the oldest man on TV. Don't use that in your promotional clip.

Corie: 1:33:07

Oh, you're celebrating that. You say oh coping that with the party and stuff in the state.

Dominic: 1:33:11

By just being and growing and learning. Yeah, that's how you celebrate. What's the point?

Corie: 1:33:17

No pump and ceremony and say.

Dominic: 1:33:18

Why does that achieve? It's like it's like when people have a big birthday party for the two-year-old.

Corie: 1:33:25

It's the same as I saying to you, your party for fifth days really for us, you know. We want the moment where we could say, like, I remember seeing Dominical National Award. Yeah, it's like, yeah, I like that.

Dominic: 1:33:35

You know, you want to celebrate those things. So the celebration is you're encouraging me to succeed, to achieve greater goals. That's my celebration. To learn more, you know. Okay. There's no bad. My partying is a having a party is a bit of a selfish to me arrogance. Really? Absolutely. Well, then, all right, somebody have the party for Dominican.

Corie: 1:34:00

Like it's a surprise party, you think? No, no, no. No, my celebration is learning more. Yeah. Learning more, teaching more. So, what you're doing in retirement, no, what you call retirement, this is your focal point, like teaching, sharing. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.

Dominic: 1:34:18

Uh wide range of people.

Corie: 1:34:21

Yeah, this is what I want to ask. So, your vision for how you teach or how you share your knowledge. And when you say wide range of people, what do you mean like age groups?

Dominic: 1:34:30

Or well currently I'm coaching a wide range of people from monks at Mount St. Benedict to CEOs to professionals who want to uh be more proficient at public speaking, or a businessman's wife might tell him or has told him you gotta learn to sound more polished.

Corie: 1:34:57

When when I look at what um communication does in terms of how people communicate and the difference it could make, was one of the things I heard you say in the first class, I heard you say to us listen, if you just fix your t your THs, you start sounding more refined immediately. That role of communication outside of media, how important is it for the average person, you think?

Dominic: 1:35:21

How does one survive without if communicating effectively? Answer that and you've answered the question.

Corie: 1:35:29

Yes, and no answer at all. Because I don't think it's something that people think about a whole lot. Like, even for me, I try, I mean, I guess in my own way and broadcasting. Yeah. But so much of what you say, I just don't think about, you know.

Dominic: 1:35:43

Yeah, it's like in life, I think it would be useful if people just say to themselves simply, how can I be better at what I do? Simple. Yeah. And it's simply it might you come to the realization that upskilling is important. So if my job requires me to speak, how can I be better at it? What do I need to do better? If I'm a computer programmer, do I still have computer programmers? Maybe. Maybe how can I be better at it? Am I going to wait for the company to send me on a training course? Or am I going to invest in myself? And just answer that question. How can I be better as a parent? How can I be better as a as a husband? What is there available? Just simple. Yeah. You know, but are people asking themselves that question?

Corie: 1:36:34

Yeah, when you say simple, I think not. You know, because I would not have thought of signing up for a course in communication if my job didn't call for it. Right. Or if I didn't run into stumbling blocks and I just can't figure it out.

Dominic: 1:36:46

Yeah. Do you know there's marriage encounter that teaches prepares at least Catholics for marriage? I think I went on that, yes. Right. So is there parenting encounter? Is there you know? Or so but as a young people you should say, hey, you know, if there's this program to prepare me for this part of my life, it's another program to prepare me for another part of my life. Or better yet. Should I start in schools? In form three, form four, form five, where the conversation is not just about passing the exam, but preparation for life. So in school they start telling you how do you prepare for the job interview? How do you prepare if you get invited to a cocktail party, which fork and knife and fork you should use, you know, which are the proper wine glasses? You know, how do I how do I present myself to the world? Yeah. If it starts then, then you continue it as you graduate from school.

Corie: 1:37:52

I suppose it becomes a little bit of a good idea. Yeah. The first time I was exposed to that was an at a lockjack graduate school of business. I was grown man, and they're trying to, you know, there's an unlearning, I guess, for younger people. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Just like in the class. David, I was taught in us a class that I went to recently to never say you're running out of time. So I'm gonna thank you for taking the time. Thanks very much. I think it was very edifying. And thanks, brother, than the conversation here. Thanks generally for what you do and what you bring to the space. I think even in and outside of the class, I always feel like I'm being taught. There's so much that I can learn just from looking at the way you do things and the way you show up. Yeah, I appreciate it. Well, thank you for inviting me. Life is about constant learning. I mean, that that's that that's not him saying he'll come back next time he invites him constantly. That's a villain. You're welcome.