Vincentian one of 10 to receive international broadcast travel bursary

A Vincentian media worker is one of 10 persons chosen worldwide to receive the 2016 Public Media Alliance travel bursary.

Colvin Harry, the programme manager at the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC), was announced as one of the recipients on March 9 and is one of the three persons selected who are from the Caribbean region.{{more}}

In an interview with SEARCHLIGHT, Harry said that he is “excited and honoured” to have been chosen for this bursary, which will see him travelling to Jamaica from April 10 – 17 to observe the ins and outs of production at multimedia companies RJR News and JET-TV.

“I think with this opportunity I will be able to learn better ways of developing content for delivery by new media platforms,” he enthused.

“This I hope to be able to share with our fledgling in-house multimedia unit to make the output of the unit better. I will also use this opportunity to meet with other media managers to further enhance my skills and knowledge.”

The Public Media Alliance travel bursary, which is organized through the University of East Anglia (UK) and funded by the Grace Wyndham Goldie Trust, enables broadcast networks and partner non-governmental organizations to go on exchange, an event or training in another country for up to two weeks.

Twenty-seven-year-old Harry, who has held the post of programme manager at NBC since 2014, is originally from South Rivers, and first became involved in the media industry at the tender age of 17.

“It’s quite interesting; one year after leaving school in 2006, I was working with my brother as a customer service agent part-time to occupy myself,” he recalled.

“I decided not to go to college, as there was nothing there that directly interested me at the time. I was told by a friend… about an opportunity at Total FM 100.5… He encouraged me to go for it and so did my brother. I went on air few weeks later as an announcer, and was the youngest on-air personality at the time. The rest is history.”

During his career in media, Harry has worked as an announcer and production officer at Total FM, and also as an announcer and operator NBC Radio. He is a past student of the St Martin’s Secondary School, and holds a Diploma (Hons) in Media and Communication, with a specialty in Radio.

As a well-seasoned media practitioner, Harry opined that the media industry within St Vincent and the Grenadines has much room for improvement.

“In some cases, a lack of professionalism is noticeable on-air and in the print. I think more entities should invest in training their staff to better equip them for their field. More practitioners should look at it as a career, and not as some job to make some money.”

In regard to his personal development, Harry explained: “I hope to continue on my path, developing myself educationally and putting my best effort into doing what I love – broadcasting. I see myself further honing my skills to elevate myself further up the media management ladder.”

Apart from his passion for all things media-related, the programme manager has a keen interest in meteorology (especially tropical weather).

“I do maintain a personal weather blog at svgweather.com that is active mainly during the hurricane season.”

He is also an amateur photographer, and is very interested in live audio visual streaming that utilizes web-based platforms. (JSV)