Raynier Maharaj: Managing Editor, Caribbean Camera

By Tisha Marajh | Posted: February 07, 2006

This article by Tisha Marajh features the illustrious career of the Managing Editor of the Canadian-based Caribbean Camera. Raynier Maharaj is one of the many Caribbean folk that now call Canada home. Through the development of the Caribbean Camera newspaper, he has carved a unique path in marrying his Caribbean and Canadian perspectives. Tisha met with Raynier at the Caribbean Camera offices in Scarborough and he candidly shared some of his experiences, thoughts and perspectives with her in the article below.

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Raynier’s career in journalism began in Trinidad at the tender age of sixteen as a free-lance writer with the Trinidad Express. He also got to live many a young man’s fantasy as a columnist with the Punch newspaper, a local weekly that specialized in scintillating stories and scantily-clad women. In 1982 he was asked by renowned Trinidadian newsman Patrick Chokolingo, to start another newspaper. This paper turned out to be the infamous Trinidad Mirror and Raynier worked as an investigative reporter on it. This job led to his being temporarily banned from Guyana after he wrote an exposé on Forbes Burnham who, after sixteen years as Prime Minister, had become Guyana's President in 1980. It was then that Raynier truly understood the power of the media in facilitating change. After that, he uncovered another story that involved corruption in the development of the Trinidad Industrial Estates of Point Lisas, a story that is linked to the downfall in 1986 of the PNM government. After being a proverbial thorn in the side of corrupt politics, Raynier became the country’s youngest ever news editor in Trinidad at the age of twenty four.

Raynier left Trinidad in 1989 for Canada; within a month he landed a job at the SHARE newspaper  -- for all of eleven months. While working there he realized that there was a sharp division among Caribbean people in Toronto that was heavily fueled by various existing media. He found that all Caribbean people were lumped into categories as either Jamaicans, or Black-Americans, or Africans, or South Asians. He felt that none of these categories recognized our cultural realities. He also saw that we ourselves tended to accept them because of prevailing assumptions and stereotypes about people of Caribbean heritage.

This perception led to Raynier's creating the Caribbean Camera. The Camera’s main purpose was to dispel those assumptions about Caribbean people and promote the commonality and uniqueness of the Region. He wanted it to be a newspaper that recognized the multi-ethnicity of the Region, and did not focus simply on the countries of historical origin like Africa, India or China. The paper was also dedicated to understanding and reporting the Caribbean experience in the Canadian context, especially in light of growing multiculturalism in cities like Toronto and Montreal

Eventually the Government of Canada recognized the cohesive nature of the newspaper and the Caribbean Camera has since become the only community newspaper to have gone national and the only one that ventures into City-specific issues – for Toronto and Montreal.

In 1993, Raynier was asked to assist in the development of a new newspaper for Trinidad and Tobago, and in that year he became one of the founders of the Newsday, one of the three daily newspapers in Trinidad and Tobago. Although residing in Canada, he continued writing for the Newsday but eventually gave up this job because of differing political views. From then on Raynier has continued to work at expanding the scope of the Caribbean Camera.

Raynier noted that building the Camera’s success has indeed been challenging. There have been huge obstacles that he has had to overcome – such as putting forward a different Caribbean perspective, facing a fear of the unknown, and of course, dealing with the ever-present shortage of money. However, the Camera has emerged solidly as a community newspaper, famous for taking the path less traveled especially when dealing with sensitive issues like race and politics.

When I asked him to comment of the spate of crimes in Caribbean communities here in Toronto, he said that the Camera has taken the stance of not using race as an excuse for these crimes. He said that many community members blame the government for their lack of input into these communities and while he agrees that this may be true, he also believes that communities need to take responsibility for the actions of their youth. They need to accept that there are criminals among them and that these people should not be protected on the grounds that “the system has failed them”.  

In the same vein, the Camera has also questioned the policies of the former provincial government that was responsible for neglecting these communities. The Camera prides itself on dispensing unbiased, multi-perspective opinions on interactions among the multi-ethnic Caribbean people as well as within multicultural communities like Toronto and Montreal.

As Managing Editor and Founder of the Caribbean Camera, Raynier has his share of interesting stories and characters. He tells of inviting Dalton McGuinty to the offices, where he had a great feast of local Trini-fare such as roti, alloo pies and sahenas. He also mentioned being invited to a summit in Ottawa by the (then) Deputy Prime Minister Sheila Copps as well as the (then) Minister of Multiculturalism Jean Augustine to participate in a discussion about the emerging face of Canada due to multiculturalism. There he met with the heads of fifteen other media companies across Canada, he also said that the trip was even more interesting because he had the pleasure of meeting CaribbeanTales own Frances-Anne Solomon!

I asked him a question that has been on my mind for some time; whether he thought that the Internet would eventually replace print sources like newspapers and magazines. After pondering for a bit, he said that he feels that an individual tends to have a personal relationship with the written word. He believes that print encourages belief more than any other medium. Print is not fleeting and it creates trust in its content. The individual can keep it and refer to it. He also believes that the Internet can work hand in hand to reinforce print media. Thus, putting the Caribbean Camera on to the Internet has made the Camera accessible to people without access to the tangible paper.

The Caribbean Camera continues to be a driving force in promoting positive multicultural values across Canada and it's constantly growing. It is the only ethnic newspaper that has been a member of the Queen’s Park Press Gallery and is often consulted on Canadian politics. Raynier also wants to see the Camera evolve with the readers. He says that although most of his initial audiences were immigrants, he has found over the last fifteen years or so that their children are very much in touch with their Caribbean roots. And this generation has also become readers who embrace the Camera in an emphatic way, but with the influence of their Canadian upbringing. He believes that the way of the future for the Camera is to encourage the younger readers by continuing to integrate their Caribbean and Canadian experience.

After the interview was over, one thing was certain; the future of the Caribbean Camera is bright. I believe that Raynier has a unique grasp on what makes a newspaper informative, entertaining and effective and the field of publishing is clearly his passion.  So I know that wherever he goes in this venture, he will be a resounding success.

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