Web TV host to receive award for excellence

Web TV host to receive award for excellence
Photo by Tangerine Clarke

Conversations With Selwyn (CWS) is an inspiring Web TV program that has taken over the Internet with ingenious narration, and a captive audience that has tuned-in for the last four years.

For this, host Selwyn Collins will be presented with the Young Gifted and Black honor for innovation in media, at the organization’s Dumbo Brooklyn ceremony on Feb. 24.

“CWS is about having conversations with people and their journeys and how they are using their gifts and talents to help others, and making positive contributions to humanity,” said Collins.

“I believe that each of us has a story to tell and when we share our stores we are best connected as human beings,” stated Collins.

“I always ask my guests, could you imagine a young person listening to you tell your stories about not only your successes, but more importantly how you overcome your challenges, and the fact that you got up when you fall, later becoming someone of note. What is wonderful is that you are planting a seed for the future of someone who is listening to that conversation.”

These are powerful messages that make Collins a great motivator to his listeners who tune-in faithful every Tuesday and Wednesday from 8:30 pm to 9:30 pm, and Sundays from 4:00 pm to 6 pm, via Zoom and Skype, to listen to his conversations and rich anecdotes that set the tone for an hour of deep soul-searching and intense information sharing.

The Guyanese-American author, who successfully launched his book of metaphors “The Earth Heart Knows” in 2012, has become a household name.

His warmth sets his guests at ease, and takes his audiences on “journeys” that Collins named one of his segments.

This element gives professions, artists, politicians and the ordinary person an open mic and platform to freely express their feelings, life, and views.

With more than 200 interviews conducted with authors, doctors, artists, politicians, journalist, and Hollywood movie stars, whose images are plastered on CWS’ Internet wall, Collins himself has become famous for getting to the deep emotions of his guests. Some of the interviews stretch to a three-part segment.

Collins, who launched CWS after a short stint on “Coalition for the Protection of Reggae” — a radio show back in 2011, is arguably a perfectionist who mastered the art of technology that he contends was difficult in the beginning, despite working as a software professional at Time Inc., earlier on.

“With the support of friends, I learned about technology and took the show to a whole new level. I believe in excellence and stretching things to the extreme,” said Collins who researched, practiced, and brought the program to where it is today. One of the most talked about, and most watched web shows.

The Queens College educated Collins who dresses debonair, and almost always sports a bow-tie, was one of the first male students transferred to Bishops High — a girl’s school that became co-education back then.

After migrating to the U.S. in 1985 and spending a year in New Orleans, he joined corporate New York, but after being laid off, Collins launched “Selco 2000” a software company that folded.

Inadvertently thrown into the media spotlight, Collins, a small-town village boy from the Essequibo region, and the last of nine children, said he modeled his show from the conversations and ideas shared between older folk under the town’s mango tree.

“Ideas were shared, and I realized each village square has a conversation tree, and this is what is missing today, that is why I created a virtual village named CWS – As It Is, aired on Sundays. It is topical,” added Collins who recently launched a four-part series on Suicide, an epidemic that is taking over Guyana.

“This will give people an opportunity to share their ideas and concerns,” he said.

The youth segment will engage the population because he said, it is important to know what their hopes and aspirations are.

He will give young people a platform to freely express themselves and be a part of the village, “because what is a nation without our youths.”

“The future of CWS is not a one-man show. My vision is to create a network that would reach listeners in Guyana, the Caribbean region, and Africa, with news and interviews,” Collins explained.

Despite the limited resources under which he produces his Brooklyn broadcast, the host states that anything is possible and plans to build his brand to include advertising, while maintaining his three-dimensional program.

This articulate and fascination personality is mesmerized by this sudden fame and positive feedback he receives.

Collins ends each show with “Fear not what fear whispers to you, fear your obedience to it.”

Log on to Cwsjourneys.com and conversatinswtithselwyn.com. Click live show and chat room.

Call 347-915-1758 or email crystal@conversationswithselwyn.com