Dear Editor,
You know a good TV personality when you see one. I really admire TV journalist and personality Ms Indira Badal who usually hosts ‘Farmers Connection’ and ‘Guyana Today.’ She has a very pleasant personality and is very calm and collected, and captures the attention of viewers watching. It takes very considerate people in the business to recognize talent emanating from individuals such as Ms Badal and a few (note, few) others.
That being said, there are numerous media personalities day after day on the TV and radio who do not possess the art of being an effective TV or radio personality. Mispronunciations, distorted voices, reading blunders, unfriendliness and in some cases hostility towards viewers, listeners or callers seem to be almost everywhere you look. But not where Ms Badal seems to find herself.
In a letter in these columns a few months back, I highlighted some of the veteran broadcasters in the business that are no longer seen or heard of. Many of the current TV and radio personalities are not worth it.
The reality is that we have persons like Mr Ron Robinson reading news briefs on a morning TV show instead of being the anchor of the nightly newscast; a young girl in New Amsterdam who more or less sleeps while she reads the news and who makes numerous pronunciation blunders – too numerous to mention (they add up every single week) – a cross-section of reporters and news anchors who are either not interested or excited about their jobs as media operatives and a few that can be counted with one’s fingers that absorb themselves in whatever assignment is given to them. Ms Badal is one such person. She does a great job hosting the farming programme and I wish that she could be seen and heard more of both on radio and TV.
I can recall hearing another excellent and pleasing voice to the ear that was doing health tips in the middle of a newscast, and that was Ms Felicia Valenzuela (pardon me if I have an incorrect spelling of the surname). She doesn’t appear on this cast any more. So we may have capable persons in the business but not much use is made of them.
Congratulations to Ms Badal and all the others who make it their duty to be the best that they can be in a business that requires hard work, dedication and love.
In the meantime we shall continue to wait for personalities like Tom Brokaw, Wolf Blitzer, Dan Rather, the late Tim Russert and Peter Jennings. We have a long wait.
Yours faithfully,
Leon Jameson Suseran
