The Association of Caribbean Mediaworkers (ACM) is mourning the death of regional journalist Ian George Alleyne.

The Guyana-born media professional died suddenly at his Barbados home on Friday (January 22).

In a statement, the ACM quoted Alleyne’s lifelong friend and Guyanese colleague, Bert Wilkinson, in outlining the highlights of his career.

Wilkinson said Alleyne started his journalistic career at the Government Information Service in the early 1980s before transferring to the state-owned Guyana Chronicle, the lone daily newspaper at the time.

“Recognising his talent and sharp intellect, management placed him in a cadet training scheme from which he emerged with flying colours,” Wilkinson said.

“He served at the Guyana Chronicle until around 1989 when he migrated to Canada. George covered politics, sports, and trade while at the Guyana Chronicle and published several articles for ethnic newspapers in Canada while there up to mid-95.”

Alleyne returned home to Guyana, spent a few years, and then moved to Barbados to join his Barbadian father and sisters in Barbados. 

There he joined the Caribbean News Agency (CANA) as an information specialist sub-editing, reporting and writing features on the news desk of the CANA Wire Service until its merger with the Caribbean Broadcasting Union to become the Caribbean Media Corporation in 2000.

For the last eight years he was a freelance reporter for Barbados Today. He was also a very active contributor to New York-based Caribbean Life newspaper – the largest Caribbean publication in the NY metropolitan area, covering regional affairs.

He was the father of Tendai, born in Guyana but raised in Barbados and The Cayman Islands where Alleyn had also worked as an editor and writer.

Apart from journalism, he was an avid sports fan – football in particular – and was senior executive of Western Tigers Division One football team in Guyana in the 1980s. He covered the sport periodically for the Guyana Chronicle, happily volunteering if staff were short.

Wilkinson said Alleyne was at one time active in the Young Socialist Movement, the youth arm of the People’s National Congress in Guyana as a youth but eased out because of his journalistic commitment. 

“George was a committed and avid regionalist and believed in Caribbean unity.”

A staunch advocate of regional food sovereignty, he believed his native Guyana should be the breadbasket of the Caribbean and therefore reduce its US$5 billion-plus annual import bill.

“Though in recent years he had been battling some health challenges,George still found the time to pound away at the keyboard, as ever passionately devoted to the idea of a vibrant, productive and purpose-driven Caribbean civilisation and to a craft that daily seeks to tell its story as he would – comprehensively, earnestly and fearlessly.”