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The Press Association of Jamaica is expressing regret at the death of David Ebanks, one of the well-known names in Jamaican journalism and a former President of the Association.
David began his career at Radio Jamaica in the 1950s, and for years his instantly recognizable voice was associated with news on that station.
He worked as a Parliamentary reporter at RJR, and was one of the hosts of the Sunday afternoon current affairs discussion programme Exposure, at a time when such programmes were rare and therefore of singular importance in informing Jamaicans of the important news events of the day.
“If you go back into the RJR archives, you’ll find that David was a key part of the RJR team covering all the national events for decades,” says PAJ President Dionne Jackson Miller.
“State matters, elections, hurricanes, whatever the event, you can expect to hear archival material with David’s voice on it. As a result he had an encyclopedic knowledge of Jamaican history and politics, gained from having been right there in the front row, as events unfolded.
“I think of one of the most important areas David contributed to was environmental reporting. He was very interested in that area and gave it a lot of attention, especially in the news commentaries which he did, and of course this was long before environmental reporting had become popular.
“I have been to a news conference with David and heard him asking questions on a topic referencing events and meetings that had taken place years before most of us had even entered journalism,” she remembered, noting that that kind of institutional memory is very rare nowadays in journalism.
David’s over thirty years in broadcasting at RJR ended with him serving as head of the then RJR News and Public Affairs Department. He continued his broadcast journalism career with a brief stint at POWER 106, but most people would have known him in recent years as part of the IRIE FM newsteam.
The PAJ remembers David Ebanks for his years of dedication to the profession, and extends sympathy to his widow Cindy, daughters, other relatives and friends.