With more than 60 prestigious awards available for excellence in journalism in the United States—awards such as the Pulitzer Prize, the Robert Kennedy Journalism Award, the Columbia University Award etc—journalists in that country have more than a fair chance of having their work honoured.

But in T&T, members of the local journalistic fraternity could spend an entire lifetime ennobling their profession and never have their work truly recognised.

That is why one should commend not just the recipients of this year's national awards but those actually responsible for granting the Hummingbird Medal Gold to Phoolo Danny-Maharaj and four of her colleagues for their work in journalism.

To fiddle with the cliche that has aeronautical if not astronomical significance, this award might be a small step for them, but a giant leap for journalism. 

Every one of us takes proprietorial pride in Keshorn Walcott's Olympian success—to the extent that I overheard one parent half jestingly say he was going to take out his nine-year-old straight-A child from school, replace his pen with a spear (javelin) and allow him to fast-forward his chance of achieving greatness even as a teenager.

But with national gold medal awards granted to the journalism fraternity, one expects that the parent who found himself in the dilemma wondering if the pen is really mightier than the sword would let him now keep his pen, realising that there are periods of enlightenment in the world every now and again, and who knows if this is not the beginning of ours, of our own Elizabethan golden era—where pen and javelin could alchemically be converted to gold.

L Siddhartha Orie

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