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(TPC) Managing Director Grenfell Kissoon:
I have very high regard for his journalistic talent
Cellphone sex sinks Sampson! |
| By
NEAL MARTIN |
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*
Nanton was named Journalist of the Year 2005 and Journalist
of the Month in October 2005 with Cable News Channel 3 and
has served two terms on the executive of the Media Association
of Trinidad and Tobago.
* In 2000 he was the Chairman of the Media Committee for
the National Youth Development Awards hosted by the Ministry
of Sport and Youth Affairs.
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AND that’s a wrap!
Sampson Nanton’s screen career, from TV to cellphone.
|
SAMPSON
NANTON on the cellphone screen
that brought an end to his TV career. |
Last
week, colleagues and fans alike were shocked by the unexpected resignation
of one of TV’s most well-known faces, Sampson Nanton, amid
a sex scandal that was first publicly exposed in the TnT Mirror
(Friday September 22, 2006).
Sam -- as those closest to him call him -- had become a household
name and a well-trusted news source in the decade that he’s
exercised privilege as a part of the sacred Fourth Estate.
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But
it’s not always been scoops and headlines for the 29-year-old
Nanton, as his life has on occasion shown up what some say
are the everyday flaws that most people have.
But it’s different with Sam, as the level of magnification
of the public’s scrutiny easily transforms the molehill
into El Cerro del Aripo.
Some say millions of men comfortably entertain their private
“Monica Lewinskys”, but that Bill’s (Clinton)
hard luck was that he was President of the United States.
Sam comes from a very strict Seventh-Day Adventist background,
and started his career as a journalist in September 1996,
working with Newsday.
Five years later, he was heading the paper’s Tobago
Bureau, but reportedly hit a rough patch with management when
a number of compromising photos were found on a computer at
the office.
Sam’s career then skyrocketed in April 2003, when he
joined Caribbean Communications Network TV6 as a senior reporter.
In fact, his peers regularly needled him good-naturedly about
the excessive number of stand-up reports he would do on TV.
In October that year, Sam won national sympathy when he was
involved in a robbery incident, when a PH driver he was travelling
with was hijacked and shot by bandits posing as passengers.
In that incident, a Good Samaritan was also shot by the bandits,
as they made their escape through Barataria.
In June 2004, that sympathy turned into ire, when Sam was
seen reporting “live” on TV6, while the National
Anthem was being played at a function at the Maha Sabha headquarters
in St. Augustine.
Some months later, it’s alleged that senior TV6 mangers
began having problems with Sam’s personal life, which
they accused him of “bringing into the office”.
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Career
Highlights |
*
He has served as a panelist on media affairs on several
occasions and has participated in dozens of seminars
on journalism across the Caribbean and the United States,
with the Reuters Foundation, the Commonwealth Broadcasters
Association, the Caribbean Media Corporation and the
British Broadcasting Corporation.
* He has served as a freelance reporter for the Starbroek
News of Guyana, the Tobago News, the Trinidad Express,
the Economic Times Magazine for Latin America and the
Caribbean, the Trinidad and Tobago Airports Authority
Yearbook, the Point Magazine, and the Caribbean Trakker
Magazine.
* He also served as a columnist with the Tobago News
between 2001 and 2003 on youth affairs.
* He has covered news stories across the Caribbean,
in Great Britain, in West Africa and in the United States.
His coverage includes an historic visit to Trinidad
and Tobago by Nelson Mandela in 2004, and interviews
with UN General Secretary Kofi Annan, Winnie Mandela,
former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, World
Cricket Record Holder Brian Lara and Venezuelan President
Hugo Chavez.
* He has served as a Trinidad and Tobago Youth Ambassador
to The Gambia in 2000 and was granted Honorary Citizen
and the Certificate of Futampaf of the West African
country.
He also served as a Trinidad and Tobago Youth Ambassador
to St Kitts/Nevis in 2002 and was the feature speaker
at the UNESCO Caribbean Youth Gathering for Peace.
* He has hosted the second and third annual Tobago House
of Assemby Youth Excellence Awards in 2004 and 2005
respectively and has served as Public Relations Officer
of both the Tobago Youth Council and the National Youth
Council of Trinidad and Tobago. |
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In August last year, Sam made what seemed his final move,
to join the newly-formed Cable News Channel Three (CNC3),
where he worked as Assignments Editor and Senior Reporter.
Sadly though for Sam, he tendered his resignation one year
to the day he started working there.
Some say Sam made his bed that way, with three sex-related
incidents in a decade, with the last occasion proving to be
the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.
Sam has insisted that the first set of 14 cellphone-camera
pictures was stolen from his laptop computer at work, and
that the women featured in them were past acquaintances.
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NANTON’s
resignation.
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His bosses at Cable News Channel Three reportedly had Board-level
talks at which it was decided that he should be off-air, “until
things cooled down”.
But that was not to be, and two other sets of similar pictures emerged.
Sam’s close friends and confidantes say that those later pictures
were added by “mischievous people” and circulated on
the Internet.
He is reported to have said that he is frustrated, because he does
not know any of the people who are appearing in pictures in a third
series that’s being attributed to him.
Mirror understands that he handed in his resignation late Tuesday
evening, and that it was accepted by Trinidad Publishing Company
(TPC) Managing Director Grenfell Kissoon.
When contacted, Kisson said he was sad to see Nanton go.
“He was a very valuable talent,” he said.
“I consider him to be one of the better journalists that’s
passed through the station.
“I have very high regard for his professionalism and his journalistic
talent … I wish him all the best.” |
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