A story of support

Note: I originally wrote this as a Facebook post in 2016. It has been lightly edited and updated for the present day.

Sometimes someone does something for you that isn't a big deal to them but has a lasting impact on you.

I was reminded of this some years back when I mentioned to my husband that I truly got into journalism because of Antoinette Connell.

Over 20 years ago, I was a teenaged newspaper intern as I wrote about in my origin story on this blog. Reporters were kind but busy and didn't really have time to bother with interns. I accompanied them to assignments and then got lost when they got back to the newsroom and had to write against deadline.

Mostly I'd hang out at the fax machine with the other interns hoping for a press release to come in so I could 'storify it' and get a story of sorts into the paper. It's a skill which came in handier than I would have ever guessed when I transitioned into a career in communications but I digress.

One day, on the way back from an assignment we came across a commotion - police removing vendors from Bridge Street. I hopped out and followed Nettie as she interviewed people and I dutifully took notes I knew I'd never get to use.

When we got back, she asked me "so what are you going to write?"

I was dumbfounded.

"Who me?"

Yes she insisted - we'd covered a story, I must write about it.

Up until then, no reporter had asked me for my contribution on anything we'd covered. I was weeks away from my 15th birthday, I hadn't even done CXC English (the Caribbean school-leaving certificate exam that most kids do in 5th form - or Grade 10 in North America). My expertise was basically writing essays at school.

But Nettie thought I could write something worthwhile so I logged into NewsEdit and wrote the story as I saw it - as if I was the reporter that she, with her matter-of-fact faith in my ability, thought I was.

At the end I showed her and she commented with approval "this is really good! Do you mind if I include it?"

Did I mind? I was thrilled!

And when the story came out as the back page lead story in the Saturday Sun, there were whole paragraphs that I had written. I made my mum photocopy it and I highlighted those paragraphs and wrote my name next to them. That copy is no doubt still at my mum's house, stuffed in the old briefcase I called my 'portfolio'.

Emboldened by that experience, each time I went on an assignment with a reporter during the remainder of my internship, I'd come back and write 'my version' and offer it up. Because now I knew I could do this.

First I got a small, no-byline front page piece on a simmering labour dispute. And then an inside byline on a half page piece about Crop-Over visitor arrivals.

And eventually on August 28th, 1997, just days before my internship ended and it was time to return to school, I got my first front page byline, sharing it with a reporter, Wynel Applewhaite.

More important than my byline (though a front page by-line on A Major Story at age 15 and 13 days was dope!) was the lesson. Antoinette essentially said to a 14 year old 'your voice is valid too' which is not something 14 year olds get a lot. I've taken that lesson with me throughout my life and because of it, I have a soft spot for interns. I try to do for them what Nettie did for me, throwing them in to do 'real' work, not just fiddling around the edges busy work.

Like I was then, they are often taken aback by having real responsibility thrust upon them but I have faith in them the way she did in me and I'm usually right. They can write the press release or the article, plan the event, draft the speech. But you have to do it to know you can do it and I see the shot of confidence it gives them.

The story here? A little support matters.

If it wasn't for Nettie, I wouldn't have gotten much out of that internship and I may have put away my ambitions to be a journalist. I would have never studied journalism and become a journalist and then a communicator and my life path would have been very different.