Aníbal Barrow (September 15, 1948 in San Pedro Sula – June 24, 2013) was a Honduran journalist and news anchor who had a television show on Globo TV from 05:30–07:30 from Monday to Friday. He was also a trained agronomist who at the time of his death was a professor of mathematics at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras.
In June 2013 he was kidnapped and murdered in San Pedro Sula, with the newspaper La Prensa described Barrow's murder as “the most ruthless crime against a communicator (journalist) in the annals of Honduran history.” He was the 36th journalist in Honduras to have been killed in a decade, and the 26th to have been killed since the June 2009 coup d’état.
Early life and education
Barrow's parents separated when he was six or eight years old. He attended primary and secondary school in Omoa, where he lived with his paternal grandfather, finishing secondary school in Tegucigalpa.
He then studied at the Regional University Center of the Atlantic Coast (CURLA), where he received a degree in agronomical engineering. He also earned a degree in journalism at CURN (the Northern Regional University Center), now the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras, in the Valle de Sula).
While he was a student at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras he was an active member of the United University Democratic Front (Frente Unido Universitario Democrático, FUUD), and was in charge of logistical coordination and public relations for that group.
Career
Journalism
In La Ceiba, Barrow worked in the radio. He then moved to San Pedro Sula, where he began working in journalism. From 1992 to 1996, according to one source, he worked at Vica TV on “Starting Early” (Desde Temprano), an early-morning news program that was broadcast on national television. (Another account of his career states that Barrow worked on “Starting Early” until 2010.)
After leaving Vica, Barrow began broadcasting his own program, “Aníbal Barrow and Nothing More” (Aníbal Barrow y Nada Más) on channel 42 of Hondured Television. At first it was broadcast on weekdays between 4 and 8 am. Later it was shortened to an hour.
News reports dating to 2009 indicate that as of that year, Barrow was associated with Hondured. In July 2009, at the time of the Honduran coup, he and three other journalists, Patricia Arias of Canal 8, Allan McDonald of the El Heraldo, and Esdras Amado López, owner of the Canal 36 television station, were feared missing, but it turned out that they, along with other journalists, had “decided to lay low because of the ongoing political crisis.” Contemporaneous reports on this matter identified Barrow as an associate of Hondured.
Barrow's own Facebook postings indicate that as of 2011 was the moderator of a regular evening program called “Theories and Realities” on Hondored and was also the host of the morning talk and commentary series, “Aníbal and Nothing More,” which at that point was airing from 6 to 8 am on both Hondured and TVH.
By the time of his death Barrow had moved to Globo TV, taking with him the morning talk show, “Aníbal and Nothing More,” that he had previously hosted on Hondured. It aired on Globo TV on weekdays from 5:30 to 7:30 am. On the program he mostly commented on current events but did not engage in investigative journalism.
At the time of his death he was also regularly hosting a radio program on Radio Norte, “Two to Eleven,” (Dos a las once) with his colleague Jorge Oseguera. They had been working together on the program since 2011.
Ricardo Mencia, Barrow's producer at Vica and later at Hondured, said that working with him was “very special” and turned Mencia into a professional in all areas of life.” Mencia described Barrow as “a kind and caring person who takes out his very heart to give it to others.” Mencia said that “Aníbal and Nothing More” became a program that was “out of the ordinary” because Barrow “jokes and chats with the people without denying anyone their right to freedom of expression, even if they are not at the moment in accord with the views of the general public.”
Mencia praised Barrow's combination of “joviality and traditionalism” and noted that for a time he always had with him on the television program a pair of maracas, which he played on the air while saying the nonsense words “naca naca pirinaca, ni fu ni fa, machaca chu, sunga tunga marunga tanga,” which became famous in Honduras. Whenever asked what these words meant, Barrow said only that it was “all part of the show.”
Another famous feature of the show was a toy rooster that emitted a bizarre crowing sound, the conceit being that the rooster was there to awaken the viewers of the early-morning show.