My friend and colleague Zahra Burton of 18 Degrees North came to talk to my Fundamentals of Journalism class at Utech on Wednesday. She held the students’ attention for the whole hour (not an easy task with fatigue and phones as competitors) and discussed what it is to be an investigative journalist.
She told them to be bold, not to be intimidated and to follow through to the end of anything. She also discussed her piece on Andrew Holness’ property holdings, and how only one journalist, several days later, contacted her to get her side of the story after he threatened her with legal action. Aside from that unpleasantness, it was a lovely talk, then we had a contest: the students had to identify the “lead” in her talk. They did not let us down.