By OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., October 8, 2021 — I was a huge fan of The PUNCH and looked forward to reading it every Monday and Thursday. In my view, it developed into the best newspaper published in The Bahamas. I became a devoted regular reader of The PUNCH from it was a weekly publication printed in Miami because my good friend, the late P. Anthony White, wrote a weekly column that was a “must read” for persons who like journalistic excellence.
I was never a fan of the weekly photos of the half-naked young ladies featured on Page 3 because I considered them to be morally reprehensible and an exploitation of these young girls for a “couple dollars.” I was, however, a huge fan of the GRAPEVINE gossip column, not so much because it developed gossip to an art form, but it always provided sufficient information for me to, more often than not, rightly guess who was being pilloried in the rumour mill.
Of course, when Nicki Kelly started writing a weekly column for The PUNCH, her columns further elevated the status of The PUNCH as a excellent newspaper. I worked Nicki Kelly during my early years as a trainee journalist at the Nassau Daily Tribune in the early 1960s. In fact, she was one of my journalistic mentors, and I learned great deal from her about journalism generally, but especially about political reporting. Nicki was The Tribune’s senior political reporter, and occasionally I would cover the afternoon session of the House of Assembly when she had a busy morning at the House and had several articles to write for the following day’s Tribune.
Anyone who has followed Nicki’s columns in The PUNCH over the years would most certainly agree with my assessment that she is unquestionably one of the best journalists to ever practice our craft in The Bahamas. I saw a letter in last week’s PUNCH, written by Mark Symonette-Rolle, that strongly supported this point of view.
Published under the headline, “PUNCH COLUMNIST KELLY IS DOYENNE OF ALL OUR WRITERS,” Mark declares: “I have always enjoyed reading Nicki Kelly’s informative column, ‘Between The Lines,’ published in The PUNCH twice weekly.
“The way Ms. Kelly dissects the issues and brings clarity to complex subjects, her recall and analytical ability are genius. Her turn of phrase, vocabulary, command of language and authoritative writing style is second to none.
“Fair, balanced, logical and intellectually stimulating and penetrating” are some of the words that come to mind when I read her many columns.”
Incidentally, Mark Symonette-Rolle was one of The Bahamas’ renowned journalists before he went to England to study law. He also worked with Nicki Kelly at The Tribune and was one of the reporters that I worked with when I was Editor of The Nassau Guardian (1998 – 2002).
Like most journalists in The Bahamas – and indeed Bahamians generally, including those who were critical of The PUNCH’s tabloid-style journalism — the sudden death of Ivan Johnson, the newspaper’s founder, publisher and editor, of a massive heart was a monumental shock.
Staff members of The PUNCH, therefore, should be highly commended for quickly “regaining their composure” to pay a “final tribute” to their boss with a final edition of The PUNCH that came out Thursday, October 8, as it normally would have. Here’s the cover of this final issue and a link to the inside pages: https://nassaupunch.com/current_edition/epaper/#
