Caribbean News
Veteran Journalist, Lloyd B. Smith, Conferred with Order of Distinction
BY: SERENA GRANT
JIS
#MontegoBay, Jamaica, November 14, 2022 – The name Lloyd Barnes Smith is synonymous with the city of Montego Bay, St. James as is the popular and much sought-after community newspaper, The Western Mirror, which he has helmed for over 30 years.
Widely referred to as ‘The Governor’, Mr. Smith is renowned for journalistic prowess, sharp business acumen and unwavering generosity to his beloved city.
For these traits, he has, this year, unsurprisingly been conferred with the Order of Distinction in the rank of Officer (OD) for service in the field of Business, Media and Community Service.
The award was presented by Governor-General, His Excellency the Most Hon. Sir Patrick Allen, during the National Honours and Awards Ceremony at King’s House on Monday (October 17), which was celebrated as National Heroes Day.
Born and bred in Mount Salem, Montego Bay, Mr. Smith tells JIS News that he always loved to write.
The proud Cornwall College alumnus discloses that it was during his time in school that he discovered his love for writing after winning a national essay competition.
“I knew I had this innate ability to write and, interestingly, when I was at Cornwall, the boarders would seek to engage young ladies from [neighboring] Mount Alvernia High School for Girls and Montego Bay High School for Girls; in those days you had to write love letters. The letters sometimes took the form of poetry or quotes or just a play on words, and I ended up making quite a little fortune writing the letters for them,” Mr. Smith recounts with a chuckle.
After graduating from Cornwall College, instead of hurdling head-on into the writing career for which he was destined, Mr. Smith went the more traditional route of teaching.
He tells JIS News that he was among the first batch of students to attend the Church Teachers’ College in Manchester, “because the college had just opened and a few of us were selected. I think it was 75 of us in all, to start; later, I graduated with credit from the college.”
Among the schools at which Mr. Smith taught were Holmwood Technical High School and Craig Head Primary School in Manchester, and St. Georges College and Kingston College in Kingston.
He also served as Principal of Oxford Preparatory School. However, during his tenure there, he saw an opportunity to finally segue into his dream career.
“I saw an advertisement in the paper where this particular publishing firm was looking for an editor, and I was always keen on getting back fulltime into publishing and ultimately journalism. It was McGraw Hill, a very well-established publisher internationally, and Kingston Publishers was the local agent for them. So, I got the job and became the editor at Kingston Publishers. I was there for quite a while, editing a few books,” Mr. Smith informs
The journalist established himself as a literary exponent when he edited the first two books ever published about National Hero, the Right Excellent Sir Alexander Bustamante.
The first was entitled ‘Alexander Bustamante and Modern Jamaica’ by Professor George Eaton, which was published in 1975, while the second, ‘Bustamante and His Letters’ by Frank Hill, released the following year.
After making his mark at Kingston Publishers, Mr. Smith joined Jamaica Publishing House, a subsidiary of Teachers’ Book Store, in a sales and marketing position, based in Kingston. He was, however, promoted to the entity’s Western Regional Manager, which saw him returning to Montego Bay.
Now back home, Mr. Smith once again gave in to his urge to write. Always still in pursuit of his journalism dreams, he approached the editor of a small community newspaper based in Montego Bay, called The Beacon, to write a column.
“I started to write a column under the pseudonym ‘The Republican’. It turned out to be a very controversial column because I was hitting left right and centre, upsetting the status quo, making life miserable for those in authority,” the newsman says with a twinkle in his eye.
The stir created by Mr. Smith’s column reflected in paper sales, and the rest is history. Soon, destiny landed him a full time job at The Beacon, where he became the editor. However, when he started in his new job, he realised that the publication’s operations were collapsing.
The owner and director of the paper, who had welcomed Mr. Smith with open arms, unceremoniously left the entity.
The entity also suffered the misfortune of its printing press being seized by the bank funding its operations through a loan, for which the equipment was used as collateral, after the firm defaulted.
This made the newspaper heavily dependent on a popular printery in Montego Bay, a move which drained its then meagre funds. These misfortunes left a shocked Mr. Smith to pick up the pieces.
“The paper was crumbling, no ads; [for] many weeks, [the] staff didn’t get paid. I even went home for several weeks [with] no salary and the workers started to rebel; there was unrest,” he recounts.
“One day, one of the workers said, ‘Mr. Smith, you look like our only hope here; what can you do for us? We want you to take over the business’. I said ‘I couldn’t do that. If I were to move in such a position, you all would have to write a letter that clearly [states this]’; so they did the letter,” he says.
Thereafter, the editor formed a management team and got to work, and in 1980, out of the ashes of The Beacon, The Western Mirror was born, published by its own publishing arm, Western Publishers Limited.
It was not an easy undertaking, as rebuilding the company took grit, determination and, most of all, heart.
Mr. Smith recounts how the company finally acquired another printing press but, unfortunately, they could not afford to charter a vehicle to bring it the paper’s location. He emotionally recalls how dedicated staff members pushed the press on a cart across town to the Western Mirror’s location at the time.
Even with his running of the newly formed company, Mr. Smith was awarded a media fellowship by the then United States Information Service (USIS) to study mass media at the Newhouse School of Communication at Syracuse University, New York, USA, in 1985.
With over 45 years in media and contributions to several other fields, Mr. Smith’s accolades and professional accomplishments read like the making of a well-rounded man of excellence.
In addition to being Managing Director and Editor-in-Chief of the Western Mirror, Mr. Smith holds the distinction of being the longest serving columnist of the Jamaica Observer, writing for the publication since its inception in 1993. He also copped the Pegasus News Chief Award and the Advertising Agencies Association of Jamaica (AAAJ) Media Personality of the Year and lifetime achievement Award, in 2008.
The veteran also received the Sam Sharpe Award for Journalism from the St. James Municipal Corporation and Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry Award for notable contribution in the field of Journalism.
Under Mr. Smith’s leadership, the Western Mirror has received numerous awards and citations, including the Press Association of Jamaica’s Best Small Publication Award on six occasions, the Marcus Garvey First Memorial Achievement Award, Print Media and the St. James Parish Council Trailblazer Award in recognition of Montego Bay’s 35th Anniversary of its attainment of city status.
In addition to his media career, Mr. Smith is a former Member of Parliament and was Deputy Speaker of the House of the House of Representatives in 2011.
In the area of philanthropy, Mr. Smith was the chief sponsor and organiser of the Lloyd B. Smith Community Football League in St. James from 1979 to 2019. He is also an honorary director of the Committee for the Upliftment of the Mentally Ill (CUMI), and a Justice of the Peace (JP).
He is an accomplished theatre actor and was first from western Jamaica to cop the local Actor Boy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role.
Mr. Smith is married and the proud father of two children.
While his list of accolades keeps growing, the veteran newsman remains the undisputed ‘Governor’ of Montego Bay.
Contact: Serena Grant
Release: JIS
Photo Caption: Managing Director and Editor-in-Chief of the Western Mirror, Lloyd B. Smith.
Serena Grant Photo
By Deandrea Hamilton | Magnetic Media
October 14, 2025 – It’s being called political theatre — but for citizens, constitutional watchdogs, and democracy advocates across the Caribbean, it feels far more serious. Within a single week, two national parliaments — in Trinidad and Tobago and St. Kitts and Nevis — descended into turmoil as opposition members stormed out in protest, accusing their Speakers of bias, overreach, and abuse of parliamentary procedure.
For observers, the walkouts signal a deeper problem: erosion of trust in the very institutions meant to safeguard democracy. When Speakers are viewed as political enforcers instead of neutral referees, parliaments stop functioning as chambers of debate and start performing as stages for power and spectacle — with citizens left wondering who, if anyone, is still accountable.
October 6: St. Kitts Parliament Erupts
The first walkout erupted in Basseterre on October 6, 2025, when Dr. Timothy Harris, former Prime Minister and now Opposition Leader,
led his team out of the St. Kitts and Nevis National Assembly in a protest that stunned the chamber.
The flashpoint came as the Speaker moved to approve more than three years’ worth of unratified parliamentary minutes in one sitting — covering 27 meetings and three national budgets — without individual review or debate.
Dr. Harris called the move “a flagrant breach of the Constitution and parliamentary tradition,” warning that the practice undermines transparency and accountability. “No serious parliament can go years without approving a single set of minutes,” he said after exiting the chamber.
The Speaker defended the decision as administrative housekeeping, but critics were unconvinced, branding the move a “world record disgrace.” The opposition’s walkout triggered renewed calls for the Speaker’s resignation and sparked a wider public discussion about record-keeping, accountability, and respect for parliamentary norms in St. Kitts and Nevis.
October 10: Trinidad Opposition Follows Suit
Four days later, on October 10, 2025, the Opposition United National Congress (UNC) in Trinidad and Tobago staged its own walkout from the House of Representatives in Port of Spain.
The UNC accused the Speaker of partisan bias, claiming she had repeatedly blocked urgent questions, ignored points of order, and allowed government members to breach standing orders without consequence.
“The Speaker has failed in her duty to act impartially,” the Opposition declared in a statement. “Parliament is not the property of any political party or Presiding Officer.”
The dramatic exit was seen as a culmination of months of rising tension and frustration, with opposition MPs arguing that parliamentary rules were being selectively applied to silence dissenting voices.
Political analyst Dr. Marcia Ferdinand described the twin walkouts as “a warning sign that parliamentary democracy in the Caribbean is teetering on the edge of performative politics.”
“When chairs become political shields rather than constitutional referees,” she said, “democracy becomes theatre, not governance.”
A Pattern Emerging
While St. Kitts and Trinidad are very different political environments, both incidents point to the same regional fault line: the perception that Speakers — the guardians of parliamentary order — are no longer impartial.
In Westminster-style systems like those across the Caribbean, the Speaker’s authority depends not on power but on public confidence in fairness. Once that credibility erodes, parliamentary control collapses into confrontation.
Governance experts say the implications are serious: eroded trust between government and opposition, declining public confidence in state institutions, and growing voter cynicism that “rules” are flexible tools of political advantage.
Why It Matters
Parliamentary walkouts are not new in the Caribbean, but what makes these recent events different is their frequency and intensity — and
the regional echo they’ve created. Social media has amplified images of lawmakers storming out, with citizens from Barbados to Belize questioning whether the same erosion of decorum could be happening in their own legislatures.
Analysts warn that if this perception takes hold, it risks diminishing the moral authority of parliamentary democracy itself.
“Once opposition MPs believe the rules are rigged, and once citizens believe Parliament is just performance,” said one Caribbean governance researcher, “you’ve lost the most valuable currency in democracy — trust.”
Restoring Balance
Political reformers across the region are calling for tighter Standing Order enforcement, independent parliamentary service commissions, and training to strengthen Speaker neutrality. Civil society leaders say the public must also play its part by demanding transparency and refusing to normalize partisan manipulation of parliamentary procedure.
Whether these twin walkouts become catalysts for reform — or simply another episode of Caribbean political theatre — will depend on what happens next inside those chambers.
For now, democracy watchers agree on one thing: when opposition leaders feel the only way to be heard is to walk out, the entire democratic house — not just its Speaker — is in danger of collapse.
Angle by Deandrea Hamilton. Built with ChatGPT (AI). Magnetic Media — CAPTURING LIFE.
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