My first day working as a full-time employee for the Caymanian Compass – as it was called then – was a momentous one.
It was 1 Dec. 2004, less than three months after Hurricane Ivan devastated Grand Cayman and the offices of Cayman Free Press. In the time between the passing of Ivan and the day I started, the Compass had become a weekly – then a twice weekly – newspaper printed by the Jamaica Gleaner.
The then-owner and publisher of the Compass, Brian Uzzell, already in his late 60s, was determined to bring the newspaper back to Cayman as a five-times weekly product, but with a renewed sense of purpose.
Brian wanted the Compass to be “better and stronger” and dig deeper into topics that it had previously avoided. If this upset some people – including those in the government – then so be it.
Along with then editor Tammie Chisholm, I was part of Brian’s vision.
Return to a daily
The day I started was the day the Caymanian Compass began printing daily newspapers again with its own presses and, just two weeks later, the Compass website went live, first internally and then publicly the following month.
For several months after I started, the Compass was printed as an afternoon newspaper that was able to bring the same day’s news to residents by the time they headed home from work.
The shift to afternoons was only temporary though. On 11 March 2005, the Compass resumed being a morning newspaper, available late the evening before.
The day that happened, a story on the front page of the newspaper announcing the return to mornings appeared along with a photograph of me, Brian and copy editor Jenny Gabruch.
Although my byline appeared on the front page hundreds of times in the years that followed, it was the only time my photo has ever appeared there.
Writing for other publications
Working with Cayman Free Press in those days meant writing for many other publications other than the Compass. I contributed to numerous publications, including The Journal, Key to Cayman, What’s Hot, InsideOut, The Observer on Sunday, the Chamber magazine and Cayman Financial Review. I would also serve as editor and writer for the first five issues of Flava magazine.
In February 2008, Cayman Free Press acquired several publications from Tower Media Group, including the Cayman Observer, Cayman Life, Cayman Financial Review, and Seven South.
With those titles came some of the Tower Media staff, including Norma Connolly, who remains a key Compass journalist and editor to this day.
The Cayman Observer became the weekly The Observer on Sunday, which was the first newspaper in Cayman that was delivered directly to homes – for free.
That publication also included longform journalism, which enabled reporters to write in depth about subjects, and also, on occasion, in the first-person point of view.
Two of those first-person accounts that I wrote – one titled ‘Remembering Ivan’ that discussed how experiencing the hurricane changed my life, and another that recalled my childhood memories of Christmas – were so well received that readers spoke to me about one or the other for years after they were published.
Fun for April Fool’s Day
Although Brian had hired me to help bring stronger content to the Cayman Free Press stable of publications, he was not without a sense of humour. For eight straight years, he allowed me space on the front page every 1 April to write a fake story for April Fools’ Day.
I wrote about Cayman switching to driving on the right for the benefit of tourists, about an artificial ski slope down the side of Mount Trashmore, a celebrity detox centre in Hutland, North Side, and a floating bridge between Cayman Brac and Little Cayman.
Despite quoting people with names like Itza Ruse, April Fuldjah and Ima Joakin, and drawing attention to the date of the articles, they still fooled some people.
In fact, during Finance Committee in Legislative Assembly one year, an MLA asked a question about whether there were still plans to build a prison to hold white collar criminals from across the Caribbean region on The Bluff in Cayman Brac – which was the topic of one of my April Fools’ articles.
My first stint with the Compass ended in 2013, when I was offered an opportunity to write and direct a series of sports documentaries. However, after a year away, I returned to the Compass under new ownership, that of Pinnacle Media.
New era
The publisher, David Legge, brought in a new era for the Compass, one which included a change of name for the publication: The Cayman Compass, which remains its name today.
Under David, we also started dealing with Cayman’s most pressing issues in longform fashion. These periodic reports were a precursor of the weekly Compass ‘Issues’ feature, which is now one of our most important news products.
In 2016, I left the Compass once again, this time for the opportunity to become the editor of Camana Bay Times. I thought my time with the Compass was over, but after Dart purchased the newspaper, the telephone rang with an offer to return, this time as the managing editor of a dynamic multimedia company that now includes television and radio.
Even though I am now at an age when most people are thinking about retirement, I eagerly accepted the offer.
Coming home
In many ways, my return was like coming home. Some of my colleagues in the newsroom – like Tammi Sulliman, Norma Connolly, James Whittaker and Simon Boxall – are people I’ve worked with before, while others are new to me.
Rather than being seen as a relic, some of my new, younger colleagues – like Sarah Bridge – see me as a Compass historian.
When someone mentioned to her that ONE|GT was the first hotel in George Town, I was quick to correct the error and say it was not first. “I wondered about that,” Sarah said, “but I figured that if anyone knew differently, it would be you.”
I’ll take that as a compliment.
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