Senators hail Balford Henry as journalism stalwart

Veteran journalist Balford Henry was remembered in the Senate on Friday as a fixture of Parliament, with legislators recalling his deep knowledge of its workings and his role in guiding younger journalists and parliamentarians. Senate President Thomas Tavares-Finson said Henry’s long association with Parliament had given him an unusually deep understanding of its procedures, history and personalities, while making him a familiar presence in the Members’ Lounge. Henry spent decades covering Parliament, having first begun sitting in the chamber in 1974, according to Tavares-Finson.

The Senate president said that, over the years, Henry became a valuable source of information for younger lawmakers. “In that time, he developed a deep understanding of the procedures of Parliament, and the senate and also had a deep understanding of the history of the Parliament…[and] for a lot of young parliamentarians, he was a source of information and guidance and many of them saw their name in print for the first time under his byline,” he recalled. Government Senator Abka Fitz-Henley, meanwhile, highlighted Henry’s ability to bring newspaper stories to life for readers.

He also pointed to one of the veteran journalist’s most notable achievements — his Press Association of Jamaica award for his coverage of Bob Marley’s funeral in 1981. “Balford Henry specialised in print media, but he had a unique ability to cause people who read what he wrote in the newspapers to paint in their imagination a vivid picture of the event that he was covering or whatever activity. That's a unique skill that few people in print media over many years mastered,” he said.

Fitz-Henley also credited Henry with teaching him an important part of the craft which is to build reliable sources across different sections of Jamaican society. He recalled Henry’s gentle approach to mentoring younger journalists and said he was among those who benefited from his guidance. There is no doubt in my mind that Balford Henry did the simple things well.

He mastered the fundamentals of media,” he added. Opposition Senator Lambert Brown recalled knowi…