Veteran journalist Cecil Griffith was yesterday laid to rest following tributes by colleagues and friends celebrating his life and legacy at the St George’s Cathedral, as they remembered him as a stickler for professional standards.
Well known to his friends as ‘Griff’ the stalwart in the field of journalism worked his way up through the ranks of the media fraternity and was once the editor-in-chief of the then Guyana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC). According to his friend Hugh Cholmondeley, the first general manager of the then Guyana Broadcasting Service (GBS), who read the eulogy, Griffith’s subordinates knew that pronouncing a word incorrectly or disregarding the facts of the story was never a minor matter. Cholmondeley spoke about Griffith’s sojourn in England where he had gone to train at the BBC. He spoke also of him as a man who lived for the profession.
Head of Guyenterprise Vic Insanally who chaired the part of the service where tributes were read, remembered Griffith as being one of the older journalists he admired when he joined the media.
Editor-in-Chief of Stabroek News, David de Caires, recalled that Griffith was removed from GBC because he stood for what journalism really should be, and that should have been the high point of his career as a journalist. De Caires named other journalists such as Ricky Singh who suffered the same fate as Griffith and said that freedom of the press should always be maintained and constantly defended. Griffith was once the editor of this newspaper and up to his death wrote the weekly column ‘City Council Round-up.’
He also had a programme on NCN television, ‘One-on-One’, where he regularly interviewed a wide cross-section of decision makers and other high flyers.
Programme Manager of NCN Martin Goolsarran read a tribute on behalf of television station while Mayor Hamilton Greene, Sir Ronald Sanders, a former Caribbean diplomat and the second general manager of the then GBS (precursor of the Guyana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC), now National Communications Network (NCN) Radio, and former broadcaster Margaret Lawrence also read tributes. Lawrence recalled that she had pronounced a word wrong when she started working under Griffith and he had pulled her up immediately afterwards.
Nigel Williams, secretary of the Guyana Press Association (GPA), which Griffith had headed for some years, said in the GPA’s tribute that Griffith was all about quality in reporting and news presentation. He said that if a practitioner wrote something silly or pronounced a word incorrectly, Griffith would be calling the editor.
The late Griffith, who had been awarded national honours with the Golden Arrow of Achievement, was interred at Le Repentir Cemetery.
