MORE OF THE SAME?

Well we haven't seen enough of the extended programming on CNC 3 to make a judgement on whether there is anything different there, but we did notice that they have lots of American shows being promoted. Hopefully it's not more of the same.

We saw most of the on-air personalities during the period when they were announcing that they were finally going national on Saturday morning, with comments from the GM and MD, and shots of the studio and newsrooms. Caught a glimpse of Mr Nanton dozing and that was added for the news story.

We were expecting perhaps a new-look newscast, but that was not to be either so we'll deal with what we saw in one story in particular which intrigued us.
It was the murder/suicide in central Trinidad. CNC 3 had a packaged story which included an interview with the mother of the woman who was killed. Her right arm was in a sling as she too had been attacked by the murderer, and she looked clearly shaken but was able to give a clear, concise on-camera interview of what took place.
At the same time, TV6 was running the same story but their account of the elderly woman's condition was very different. The newsreader Joel Villafana (the sportsman?) told us that she was warded in critical condition at hospital. Hmmmm.
So was it that she did the interview with CNC before or after her critical condition arose?
Then the next morning, 95.1FM's newscaster told us the woman had been treated at the Chaguanas Health facility and discharged. The Newsday's Onika James does not mention anything about the elderly woman's condition beyond the fact that she was chopped. The Guardian's Adrian Boodan told us she was treated at the Chaguanas Health Facility and discharged.

Miss James however told us that the dead woman, Ms Romeo was the mother of two children, "a 13-year-old daughter, and a 16-year-old son." Mr Boodan told us that Ms Romeo's children "...both attend primary school,...". While Keino Swamber of the Express told us Ms Romeo was "a mother of two primary school children."
Both the Guardian and Newsday spelt the woman's name as "Ursilla Romeo", but the Express had "Ursula". However Keino Swamber told us her mother's name is Ms Badal, while the Newsday had Bahal and the Guardian Bahall.

And the discrepancies don't stop there. Mr Boodan told us "He had a hatchet in his hand and there was blood on his clothes. Williams told (his nephew) he had murdered Romeo and that he would drink a poisonous substance and kill himself. Relatives did not initially take Williams seriously because he had made similar threats in the past." Was there blood on his clothes the last time he made the threat? Steups!
Mr Swamber told us "Williams then told a relative, Anston Daniel, that he had just killed Romeo, drank a poisonous substance and was going home to sleep. Williams's body was discovered at his home at around 7.10 a.m. yesterday." What time was the relative given this grim story, since the crime was allegedly committed on Friday night? Steups!
Too many unanswered questions exacerbated by the discrepancies in reporting.