Last Saturday, the Media Trust organized its evening to reward journalists for their work during the year 2022. Yesterday, we spoke to the lucky winners.
To mark the 250th anniversary of the Mauritian press, the Media Trust decided to offer a ‘Special Award’ to several journalists, the veterans of the Mauritian press. The award reads: “A token of deep appreciation for your immense and invaluable contribution to the development of a free, vibrant and plural press, on the occasion of 250 years since the publication of the first newspaper in Mauritius.
A wonderful idea to remind the young people who have been in the press, witnesses of the history of the country, for almost fifty years. With an imperishable memory of the events that have marked the country, they lived at a time when there was no cell phone, nor a good recorder, and even less, the famous Google, Facebook, or WhatsApp. Reports and interviews were made from handwritten notes (improvised newsprint). Some journalists of that time were writing about world events with the help of magazines, dispatches, and news from BBC or France Inter.
Last Saturday was also a good moment of relaxation, of reunion between the colleagues of a time and some young journalists. Suddenly, we realize that we no longer know the journalists of the present generations, like Jean Claude de l’Estrac, who tries to know a little more about the vice-president of the Media Trust Board, Fateema Capery, who tells Jean Claude about her career in the press: “I know you”.
Yvan Martial sums up our profession of journalist very well in these words: “Everything we write contributes to the building of the Mauritian nation. We take great care in our writing to never unnecessarily hurt another Mauritian.
