The fact that Earl Witter, the public defender, has been chosen to sit on a panel to produce The Gleaner on December 9 brings back many memories of my days as a young reporter on that paper.

Witter was one of several of us hand-picked by editor, Theodore Sealy, as a new crop of young reporters. It is my firm belief that had Witter not chosen to read law, and had remained at The Gleaner, most certainly he would have become editor, years and years ago. Young Witter had all the trappings. He was well educated, had the bearings, the charisma, the wit and a deeper than guttural voice, back then in his very early 20s, to have set him up for the job. He could sniff out a story the way none of us could.

playing the part

I well recall a time when the junior doctors, protesting then as they often do now for a raise on salaries, were intransigent and determined that they wouldn't budge from their stance. As a consequence, day after day The Gleaner had to be content with their handouts as reporters were not allowed into their closed sessions. Somehow young Witter, then a mere stripling, found himself into the meeting posing as a junior doctor.

But that was not the best part of the story. He found himself having to defend his position, to such an extent that he got an excellent story which, if not a headline, certainly merited its place on top of the fold. The junior doctors were livid.

I am, etc.,

LLOYD RUSSELL, JP

Hopewell Park

Discovery Bay

St Ann