JOURNALISM is not one of the easiest occupations. Believe me. Never mind that many outsiders looking in, especially the young (teen years on) see the profession as glamour work, interviewing exciting people, travelling here and there, attending exotic events. Yeah, right! Sorry to disillusion you kids. Journalism, the real kind, is no everyday glamour event, trust me. They are not “Oscar nights”, as you might think. Nor is it for the faint of heart.

Those who have earned the professional title of journalist, however, are willing to “keep on keeping on”. Some assignments can have news-gatherers rushing to meet allegedly exciting personalities, who turn out to be as boring as a wet wash rag, but work is work.

In pursuit of the news, we may find ourselves talking to thieves, but to get the story, we may have to pretend that we are in the company of ladies and gentlemen — same difference. You’d be surprised to discover how many celebrities are not what they say they are. Meanwhile, real journalists work hard to make the headlines and gain some personal accolades too.

Now that the world of journalism has been expanded from the old typewriter and pen and pencil days, there are more opportunities, more room for success. There are hopes and big dreams, although prosperity is elusive — always has been — while the profession moves on to new levels.

Across the Caribbean, journalists have opportunities to make connections with others, widening their knowledge base, and room for dreaming that one day they too could make it big-big, thanks to developments in education and training.

Journalists can find themselves working together like a family, developing lasting friendships within their environment. A newsroom can become like home, with friendships made and lessons learned from the daily occurrences. There is opportunity for the true professionals to improve skills and, who knows, to become legends — or at least something like that.

In the oldest of the newsrooms, in JA journalism, tragedy struck last week, not once but twice in two days, when two well-known and respected members of “the industry”, noted for the quality of their performance, as gatherers of important news, left us. Glenroy Sinclair and Gary Spaulding had both won the respect of their peers in the newsroom and beyond.

Sinclair was noted for his “family-style” fellowship, highly respected not only for his professional style but his caring attitude towards others. As tough as journalists are supposed to be, it has not been easy to be reconciled with this turn of fate. Why him? I heard someone say: “He was a good man. We don’t understand why him, instead of the wicked out there.” It is too late to get an answer. A retort came back, “We will never know.”

Glenroy was the first of the duo to face an unexpected health challenge, which resulted in collapse over his desk on Friday and ended in hospital, from what I heard. By Saturday, he had passed away.

Messages of regret and remorse poured into the newsroom from colleagues dazed with disbelief. In all probability, if it had happened to others, they, with an ear for history, would be crafting suitable reports to reflect the mood of colleagues and family responding to tragedy.

The question of Gary’s departure is another puzzle. He, like Glenroy, was deemed a credit to the profession, putting the very best forward day after day, not only with colleagues but the wider community. Younger colleagues utter praises to Glenroy for his mentoring of their age group who experienced his willingness to devote time to help, when and where needed.

Gary, who I’ve heard was one of the devout friends of Glenroy, did not get much time to mourn his lost friend. Suddenly and without warning, he left the newsroom for home one day, never to be seen again in that space. Someone has to write now, not one, but two reflections on the cold, dark moments in time into which they have ventured. A pall (to use an historic word) hangs now over the newsroom as the team struggles to express their feelings, to soothe the anguish of family, friends and others who join in the grief.

“Some always die too soon,” wrote the noted French artist, Jean-Paul Sartre, who added: “Too soon or too late. And yet…one’s whole life is complete at that moment, with a line drawn neatly under it, ready for the summing-up trip.”

I do not know about being ready, as Monsieur Sartre declared, but we do know it is too late for other assignments. But of one thing we can be sure, the memory of two dedicated professionals will live on. In the newsroom, there is mourning. The appropriate headlines are being crafted and the best pictures printed to memoralise lost friends. Families and colleagues have lost an important part of their lives, swept away in the ‘news of the day’, bringing home, so vividly, that there was sense, after all, in the time-inspired classic sentence: “Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for the passing of life.” Add to that, it provides headlines and the text of the story, which wandered into the newsroom.

PS: I did not know Glenroy as much as I knew Gary, who was not only an avid “news hunter”, but one who enjoyed “picking argument”. Gary was good company in the times we shared at

RJR. He was always on the prowl to “get the news” to show off on what he knew (all in good faith). He was quick to ignite a fiery argument, which resulted in never a dull moment in his company. He was an historian. He did not suffer a certain brand of fools who would dare to contradict. He knew what he knew, and if you didn’t, then it would suit you to wisen up. Then he would laugh. Glenroy, another legend, I’ve learned, will long be remembered as an example of the meaning of what “great journalists” mean. May peace in eternity be theirs.

Regional phenomenon

Other journalists have left the newsroom in recent weeks. Ours not to reason why. Guyana lost one of its top journalists in early June, when Dale Andrews, assistant editor of the noted Kaieteur News, ended his tenure after a brief illness.

And lest we forget, one of the Caribbean’s most outstanding cricket journalists, Tony Cozier of Barbados, got “run out by time”, in the month of May. The sports writers field is now short of a writer who wielded a pen with the skill of a master batsman, and now, his innings have ended. Time moves on.

History

The year was 1974…party in honour of Muhammad Ali at Jamaica House…host, Prime Minister Michael Manley…music, The Mighty Burner.

Everybody wanted to learn from the Champ himself, when he advised: “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” Those were the days. Muhammad Ali, one of a kind…champ to the very end. Now free of the troubles which dogged him, but didn’t stop him, until time ended the fight in recent days. You’ll always be a winner, Champ.

Have you ever reflected on how difficult life was for our nation in times past, yet other people found solace visiting us here? We have always had our own butterflies, our own bees, real and imagined. These days, up in the St Andrew hills, for the second week or so now, hundreds of butterflies fill the air. What’s the message that they bring? Let’s see, nuh!

Barbara Gloudon is a journalist, playwright and commentator. Send comments to the Observer or gloudonb@yahoo.com.