A giant in media and in life is how the journalism fraternity, the country’s leaders, and noted public figures described the late Ian Boyne following the shocking news of his passing yesterday.
The 60-year-old veteran journalist, a media celebrity and self-made success, died yesterday morning at the University Hospital of the West Indies.
He had been hospitalised on December 3 after suffering a heart attack, but was released a few days later and was said to be recovering well.
Even those who had never spoken with nor seen Boyne in person have been deeply shaken by his passing, because, as one of Jamaica’s most accomplished and respected journalists, he had, through his television programmes and writings, touched the lives of numerous Jamaicans for more than four decades.
Known for his 30-year-running television personality series Profile, his prolific columns in the Sunday Gleaner, as well as his debate-stimulating Religious Hardtalk TV programme, Boyne’s work spanned the full gamut of journalism and found its way into the homes, minds, and hearts of Jamaicans here and in the diaspora.
Veteran broadcaster Fae Ellington was among those who worked closest with Boyne since the dawn of his illustrious career in the 1970s. She remembered him as a hard worker, who was uncompromising in the quality of his work and adherence to professionalism.
“Ian and I go way back to the mid-70s… we have a healthy respect for each other. He often teased me, as he did in his WhatsApp messages last week, that I could have been Mrs Ian Boyne, but because I was a celebrity I had too many people to choose from,” Ellington told the Jamaica Observer with a laugh.
Leave A Comment