Searchlight News Paper saved my life!

by: Kirby Jackson

Dramatic, yes! Over dramatic? No!

The call I made to Clare Keizer in 2006, asking for an opportunity to work as a reporter was an ‘all marbles in’ move.

A disgraced preacher, of my own doing, who for a few years wrote a “dear Pastor” column for the newspaper, now out of work, frustrated, ashamed, I turned to the other love I had outside of my religious calling- journalism. Searchlight gave me a chance to find purpose again.

At age 16, I was the youngest full time reporter in Trinidad and Tobago, with the now defunct weekly Bomb and Heat publications. It was the perfect storm; a man at sea, needing somewhere to belong, a love for journalism mixed with the trust place in me by the late great Norma Keizer and Clare Keizer, quite a ride.

My friend Hawkins Nanton, wow! we recently spoke of the fierce competition in the newsroom when we worked together. He was accustomed, at that time, being the one to run to and for the big stories, his byline forever plastered on the front page. Now, as news broke, no matter how close to cut off time it was, he and I were literally fighting to be out the door, get on the scene, work our sources, secure the lead.
Meanwhile, Jude Knight, our Chief Sub-Editor was the perfect antagonist, “who has a lead story, who has a front page?” he would constantly ask. Some ignored him but Hawkins and I went hunting for an exclusive, competitive fuel.

I was so proud to be named employee of the year in 2007, an award that still hangs in my mother’s house in Trinidad.

Many stories and interviews stayed with me. I broke the exclusive about a serial rapist that was on the loose in 2006. The story was refuted and called a blatant lie by the police leadership. I was asked to reveal my sources to “prove” truthfulness. I am glad that management backed me and then in 2008, the said police hierarchy declared that “the serial rapist was back at it”- confirming that what we published two years before was in fact true.

Patricia Jack- Bowman is a name I can never forget. On a dreadful September day in 2008, a wall in Rath Mills collapsed and her life was lost. As the senior reporter on that story, I handled every aspect of that coverage, from the human-interest side to the investigative questions about whether that wall was built to legal specification. The image that is forever tattooed in my mind is standing in the mud and rain for hours, not moving, until the rescue team dug up her smashed car and recovered her remains. The picture of that car being raised out of that mud was our exclusive front page photo and told the story without the words.

I have formed lasting friendships through my time at Searchlight, none more important than Clare Keizer, who has become a trusted advisor and friend.

Allow me to drop an exclusive; I almost returned in 2022 be part of the leadership, but it was just not to be.

“As you would recall, my departure was due to family considerations at the time and was never because of any breakdown or failure in my relationship with the organization” is what I said in my letter of intent to Clare in June 2022.
This remains true even now at the end, Searchlight is forever part of me and served St Vincent and the Grenadines with honour. Cheers!