Covering the Caribbean beat

by Clem Richardson for the Daily News, Originally published on December 23, 2005

...Felicia Persaud is CEO of Hardbeat News in Jackson Heights, a news service and public relations firm that specializes in serving what it calls 'the Caribbean Diaspora.'...

...Persaud, CEO of Hardbeat News, a Jackson Heights, Queens, wire service/public relations firm specializing in news and information about the Caribbean community, put Barbour's announcement at the top of her "Hardbeat News Daily Edition," a collection of stories and electronic links that she E-mails to clients each weekday.

But not because she backs a boycott...

..."We found that just the Caribbean-American market was not sellable because we don't know the exact number of people in it," she said. "When you're selling a corporation, you can't just say we have a target of approximately 5 million people.

"So we sell the entire Caribbean and the diaspora. When you say you have a market of 40 million, people take notice."

Persaud, who also lives in Jackson Heights, said the service gets its news from other wire services, the Web sites of Caribbean news organizations like the Jamaica Gleaner, and from freelancers throughout the region...