Transcript
00:00:02 Speaker 2
OK, basically it was just we’re going to just start asking questions.
00:00:06 Speaker 2
Is that OK?
00:00:07 Speaker 2
OK.
00:00:07 Speaker 2
So could you discuss some significant news events that you’ve covered throughout your career?
00:00:12 Speaker 1
Oh God, you know that that that I mean.
00:00:14 Speaker 2
It’s a big question.
00:00:18 Speaker 1
In just categories, Vietnam.
00:00:21 Speaker 1
I was over in Vietnam and actually left.
00:00:25 Speaker 1
Vietnam from the roof of the embassy.
00:00:28 Speaker 1
On the final day.
00:00:31 Speaker 1
Northern Ireland.
00:00:34 Speaker 1
Middle East conflicts going back to 67.
00:00:41 Speaker 1
Cyprus, the fall of Cyprus.
00:00:45 Speaker 1
The famine in Ethiopia.
00:00:50 Speaker 1
You know, political events.
00:00:53 Speaker 1
I don’t want to sound cavalier, but.
00:00:54 Speaker 1
It’s just the list just keeps.
00:00:56 Speaker 1
Going on and on and on, I had a.
00:00:58 Speaker 1
A real good run at it for now, nearly 40 years.
00:01:03 Speaker 1
I mean.
00:01:05 Speaker 1
You know, Middle East and Beirut in 82 I.
00:01:11 Speaker 1
Traveled inside Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation on 4 occasions.
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With the Mujahideen.
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I interviewed Bu Abbas and Abu Nidal, the two terrorists for NBC.
00:01:25 Speaker 1
In the in the 80s.
00:01:29 Speaker 1
Prison riot in Kingston.
00:01:31 Speaker 1
I actually got in the prison during the riot and stayed there.
00:01:34 Speaker 2
Really. How?
00:01:35 Speaker 1
Well, it was.
00:01:37 Speaker 1
A friend of mine, I was curling in Toronto and a friend of mine.
00:01:41 Speaker 1
Called up and said his son.
00:01:43 Speaker 1
Was a prison guard and there was a riot and they didn’t know nobody said anything about it.
00:01:48 Speaker 1
It wasn’t near public.
00:01:48 Speaker 1
I should know about it.
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I grabbed the camera when we went up there.
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To Kingston and which wasn’t that far from Toronto, got there and still no media has arrived.
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And I was talking to the ward.
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Somebody said I heard them talking about.
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They needed to get somebody inside to see what the status was and I said I would go.
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And the warden said, Are you sure?
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And I said fine.
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And so when I went.
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Stayed for the first day of the riot.
00:02:18 Speaker 2
What? What year was that?
00:02:20 Speaker 1
You know, I don’t remember.
00:02:21 Speaker 1
I would have been.
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72 I think.
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Certainly you’d be able to trace it because it was.
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In all the newspapers and I at the time the Toronto Telegram, was the newspaper in 19 reports to the Toronto Telegram.
00:02:38 Speaker 1
But I think it was in 1972.
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71.
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There were a number of people killed in that riot.
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Eventually prisoners were killed.
00:02:49 Speaker 2
What were some of the highlights of coverage as a network reporter?
00:02:53 Speaker 1
Well, most of my time I’m a little unusual in the sense that.
00:02:57 Speaker 1
I’ve almost always been a network report.
00:03:01 Speaker 1
I started my career in 1961 with the 60 actually late 60s with the Brandon Daily Sun newspaper in my hometown.
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And then gravitated eastward.
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And joined the.
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The CTV Network in 1966, coming from Radio, had gone over from.
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I worked in a couple of radio station.
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In Ottawa and then joined CTV in 66 so.
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I pretty much I never worked in.
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A local town.
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Pretty much worked in.
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Television and television news prior to my joining, and it wasn’t because of me, but was a pretty.
00:03:43 Speaker 1
Calm thing, I mean, most newscasts were quite short.
00:03:46 Speaker 1
There weren’t many reports done. Maybe 1A night, that sort of thing. It wasn’t a very profound.
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In fact, I remember on.
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BBC in the BBC the guy would dress up in a.
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To do the report.
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And I I joined not much longer after that, but most of the report would be the newsreader reading over snipe.
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The footage.
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So in a funny sort of a way, I was probably one of the 1st 50 reporters that there was because I don’t think there were reporters.
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Until the very early 60s of any to any degree.
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They’d have a guy in Washington and a guy in Ottawa, and that would be.
00:04:29 Speaker 2
OK, that’s.
00:04:31 Speaker 2
Who were some of your?
00:04:34 Speaker 2
When his colleagues at the time that were doing the same thing, or were you the very first?
00:04:37 Speaker 1
Oh, God, no, I wasn’t the very first.
00:04:39 Speaker 1
No, no, I didn’t mean to characterize that.
00:04:41 Speaker 1
I mean, I was in the first wave, but I was not the first.
00:04:43 Speaker 2
OK.
00:04:46 Speaker 1
Colleagues would do Peter Jennings and I worked together at CTV.
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Morley Safer and I worked together at CTV Marty of.
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And I worked with a lot of people who have.
00:05:01 Speaker 1
Had illustrious careers Norman Depoe, the CBC, Harvey Kirk.
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You know.
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You name them and I guess I’ve worked with them over the last many years.
00:05:16 Speaker 2
What about covering abroad for Canada?
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What was that like?
00:05:19 Speaker 1
Oh, that was the best.
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And I mean, I still do it, in fact.
00:05:23 Speaker 1
I’ve been very fortunate in the sense that I joined CTV in late 66. I went to Quebec.
00:05:30 Speaker 1
And was their first Quebec correspond?
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Then I and they did that until 1970 from 67 to 70. Then in 70 I moved back to Toronto, where I took over the national reporting job, which shows you how small things were in those days. I mean, I was the national reporter, which meant I covered everything from Toronto to Vancouver.
00:05:49 Speaker 1
There were no other.
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I think there was one chap.
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Wally Mott had been in Winnipeg.
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And then Wally came to Toronto to read the news, and I took on the responsibility of covering the prairies from Toronto.
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Then I went in 1972 to England.
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Before CCTV became the London correct.
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1976 wait a second 1776 I went to Washington.
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Cover the White House.
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And then in.
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79 I went to Canada.
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And they hosted the.
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W5 progn.
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I did that for.
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Two years.
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Mostly as a foreign correspondent because they wanted me to do foreign story.
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There were two other correspondents who did domestic.
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And then I joined NBC and went immediately overseas to.
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Frankfurt, Germany.
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I was there for a year and I got sent to Warsaw where I was there for two years.
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Covering solidarity.
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Then I was transferred to London and I worked in the London Bureau, which.
00:07:01 Speaker 1
Had me covering all over the.
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From there I got and that lasted until 88, and I was there for six years, I think, and then 88.
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I came back to.
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Washington, where I became.
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Congressional correspondent for NBC.
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And that brought me.
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94 and then in 94.
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I switched over.
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I guess it was early in 95 actually and joined CBC.
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Where I did the morning show for two.
00:07:32 Speaker 1
Then came back here to the work out of the Washington Bureau.
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Been here ever since.
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So I haven’t.
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Had much Canadian experience in that period of time.
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The two years in the morning show was hot.
00:07:43 Speaker 1
And the two years.
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75 and the rest of the.
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Pretty much I’ve been overseas.
00:07:48 Speaker 2
Wow, you’ve done a lot of travelling.
00:07:49 Speaker 2
That’s great.
00:07:49 Speaker 1
Yeah, it’s been fun.
00:07:51 Speaker 2
Was there any specific news event or moment that confirmed for you that news was providing a valuable service to citizens?
00:07:58 Speaker 1
Oh, I think that.
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I’m I.
00:08:02 Speaker 1
Is a pretty valuable thing all through the day.
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Every day for me, I do.
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I I don’t think we’re the most important ingredient in society, but I think we feel a function that’s necessary.
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I think people.
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Have come to.
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Rely on Daily News.
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They have different ways.
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They rely on it some.
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Established television as their source.
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Others newspapers, others magazines.
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Radio, whatever, but.
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I think this society would grind to a pretty quick halt if there.
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A daily.
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News budget.
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It doesn’t necessarily mean to be crime or war.
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It can be business stock markets, weather.
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I mean it’s all.
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All part of IT sports is a big.
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Part of some people’s lives.
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I think that kind of we are the information age and I think journalism plays a very strong role.
00:08:58 Speaker 1
And I’ve always felt that.
00:09:04 Speaker 1
Useful work.
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Some days more useful than others, but certainly use.
00:09:11 Speaker 1
I mean, I think if there was a a story that suddenly pops into my mind where we really did make a difference was.
00:09:17 Speaker 1
When I went to Ethiopia, it was a guy from the BBC who, Michael O’Rourke, who actually broke the story of.
00:09:27 Speaker 1
This starvation in Ethiopia, you’ll remember a few years.
00:09:31 Speaker 1
But I was the 2nd reporter there and the First American reporter to cover it was Canadian, but covering it for NBC.
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And I think that our reports led to an outpouring of of of concern about starvation.
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Goods and money flowed into Ethiopia.
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I think it saved lives.
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More important, I think it is established in a longer term.
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The viability of such organizations as care and.
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Famine and.
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Medicines on frontier and organizations like this.
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Who still today?
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In a way, ride the.
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The awareness that came out of the Ethiopian.
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Horror Story and I think.
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Those organizations do a lot better now as a result.
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Of the news covering their work, and I’m sad to.
00:10:23 Speaker 1
Say we don’t cover more.
00:10:28 Speaker 2
What is your reaction to recent trends in news gathering and presentation since from when you started till now?
00:10:34 Speaker 1
Well, I mean, things change.
00:10:38 Speaker 1
A purist in the sense that I liked.
00:10:40 Speaker 1
The old days.
00:10:42 Speaker 1
Better than I like the new days, but.
00:10:47 Speaker 1
Not in any.
00:10:48 Speaker 1
I mean, that isn’t the thing.
00:10:49 Speaker 1
I beat my head over.
00:10:51 Speaker 1
I mean, I like the idea of a slower approach to news.
00:10:55 Speaker 1
We used to take two and three days to do a story we didn’t concern ourselves with every little.
00:11:00 Speaker 1
Hiccup in the.
00:11:04 Speaker 1
You’d go out with the troops.
00:11:05 Speaker 1
You might spend two or three days out there.
00:11:06 Speaker 1
You came back with a pretty complete story of whatever.
00:11:09 Speaker 1
It was that you were doing and you.
00:11:11 Speaker 1
Married that into the general flow of information.
00:11:13 Speaker 1
There was.
00:11:14 Speaker 1
I think there’s a little too much concentration on the Daily News and as such, I think there’s a banality that’s scripted into our work of which I participated in and I’m not, I’m not.
00:11:24 Speaker 1
Oblivious, Tom.
00:11:26 Speaker 1
But at the same time, I think our audience has changed.
00:11:29 Speaker 1
I think the people we’re talking to are different.
00:11:32 Speaker 1
Than the people I talked to.
00:11:34 Speaker 1
30 days.
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I think their needs are different.
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I see that in my children.
00:11:40 Speaker 1
Very smart with computers, very savvy with the Internet, way smarter than their father and and the fathers and mothers of all their their friend.
00:11:48 Speaker 1
And I think they have different needs and part of it is speed.
00:11:53 Speaker 1
And part of it is.
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Brevity and to the point.
00:11:57 Speaker 1
And I sometimes think that maybe.
00:12:01 Speaker 1
Profession now is more of a.
00:12:05 Speaker 1
Signaling service to the community because I find with my children if they see something on.
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That is relatively brief about a story.
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If it’s intrigued, then they’ll get on the Internet and find out more about.
00:12:19 Speaker 1
And or they’ll pick up the newspaper and look at it.
00:12:23 Speaker 1
Now my children are 14 and 12, so their interests are somewhat different than the broad.
00:12:28 Speaker 1
But, you know, there’ll be a.
00:12:30 Speaker 1
A shooting somewhat near our home.
00:12:33 Speaker 1
There’ll be a traffic accident that claimed the life.
00:12:35 Speaker 1
Of a high.
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School student there’ll be something of that kind.
00:12:39 Speaker 1
Or, you know, some rock star is found wandering around dead drunk or whatever is a story that appeals to young people.
00:12:47 Speaker 1
And if they see it on television, they’re very quick to go to the newspapers and whatever and find out.
00:12:51 Speaker 1
And as they grow a little older.
00:12:53 Speaker 1
I’ve watched this.
00:12:54 Speaker 1
They are now starting to look at more serious subject.
00:12:58 Speaker 1
And it seems to me that they get their headline from the media.
00:13:01 Speaker 1
And then.
00:13:03 Speaker 1
Make it their business to follow up.
00:13:07 Speaker 1
In the in the in more detail than any of the newspaper stories of the day.
00:13:11 Speaker 1
Or they go into the Internet.
00:13:13 Speaker 1
And truck around until they find out what they want.
00:13:17 Speaker 2
That leads perfectly to my next question actually about technological developments in news gathering, how it’s changed the field, the news throughout the years.
00:13:25 Speaker 1
Well, it brought speed and speed was not, in my view necessarily a good thing.
00:13:32 Speaker 1
It has a tendency to create a certain amount of banality.
00:13:37 Speaker 1
I think it induces a kind of competition among the media, which is not always to the benefit of the viewer.
00:13:43 Speaker 1
And I’m Speaking of viewers, I think the.
00:13:45 Speaker 1
Same thing applies.
00:13:46 Speaker 1
To the written word word as well.
00:13:49 Speaker 1
We have a tendency to headline chase.
00:13:51 Speaker 1
Therefore sometimes we don’t stay.
00:13:54 Speaker 1
As long with a particular event, story or trend that we probably should do.
00:14:01 Speaker 1
In the older days.
00:14:03 Speaker 1
You might go somewhere, and if you were dealing with a flood or a famine or.
00:14:12 Speaker 1
Disk discovery or whatever, you might spend a week and do three or four stories on.
00:14:17 Speaker 1
Free to look at.
00:14:18 Speaker 1
In dev.
00:14:20 Speaker 1
Now you can be doing your flooding as soon as the water starts to subside.
00:14:24 Speaker 1
They send you after the hurricane and that’s banality.
00:14:28 Speaker 1
But because I work mostly with politics, but you follow what I’m getting at.
00:14:33 Speaker 2
OK.
00:14:34 Speaker 2
What about specific technological like and film to tape or buses to microwaves and satellite that’s all contributing to speed?
00:14:41 Speaker 1
Well, I think.
00:14:42 Speaker 1
Some of these things.
00:14:47 Speaker 1
If I have one criticism of the technological advantages, is it created with inside the industry?
00:14:55 Speaker 1
A technological superiority which gave some people who weren’t journals.
00:15:02 Speaker 1
More control over news flow and news operation.
00:15:08 Speaker 1
For example.
00:15:09 Speaker 1
In 1975, I participated as a member of CTV in the.
00:15:18 Speaker 1
The Helsinki Conference, which was the first grouping of East European and West European countries and and Pierre Trudeau attended that as.
00:15:31 Speaker 1
Canada and almost all the world’s nations were there, and it was the first time that there was a satellite news service from Europe.
00:15:40 Speaker 1
Two North America and I participated in sending back dispatches to.
00:15:46 Speaker 1
The CCTV and I remember thinking how wonderful this was.
00:15:49 Speaker 1
But it created a new group of people who were expert in satellite transmission.
00:15:54 Speaker 1
Who were producers that we never had before?
00:15:58 Speaker 1
And these people didn’t have the requirements.
00:16:01 Speaker 1
Journalism that the rest of us had.
00:16:04 Speaker 1
Accuracy, speed.
00:16:05 Speaker 1
The ability to write.
00:16:06 Speaker 1
And this sort of thing.
00:16:08 Speaker 1
And but they had different priorities.
00:16:12 Speaker 1
Now, if you’re in television.
00:16:15 Speaker 1
In very simple terms, if you’re on air or you’re shooting pictures or whatever, why would you want to be a boss has always been my.
00:16:23 Speaker 1
Calculation I mean.
00:16:25 Speaker 1
It does seem that the important thing and the most the most.
00:16:29 Speaker 1
Useful thing and I think the most fun thing is actually be out there getting the story and sending it back.
00:16:34 Speaker 1
Well, what happened was we created a whole cadre of people.
00:16:37 Speaker 1
Who started satellite speak and tape speak and things like this and they rose in the hierarchy and suddenly you looked around and they were the general manager of the news department or whatever.
00:16:48 Speaker 1
And I think that in most networks and I’ve worked for three.
00:16:53 Speaker 1
The networks have suffered with the rise of these people because they don’t have.
00:16:58 Speaker 1
Journalistic instincts to me.
00:17:00 Speaker 1
Those of the actual reporters and people who are out in the field.
00:17:04 Speaker 1
And consequently, they pay attention to surveys and they pay attention to polls.
00:17:09 Speaker 1
Whether and you don’t look at this silly ******** that’s going on right now and all the networks where you run a crawl of words underneath the pictures now, I’ve talked to a lot of people about that.
00:17:19 Speaker 1
I’ve asked them, do you ever see?
00:17:20 Speaker 1
Do you ever read that stuff?
00:17:22 Speaker 1
Nobody does.
00:17:23 Speaker 1
You know.
00:17:24 Speaker 1
And now maybe younger people do.
00:17:27 Speaker 1
After all, you’re talking to an old.
00:17:29 Speaker 1
Fart in these things.
00:17:30 Speaker 1
But, but the truth is, I’m looking at it right now as I’m talking to you and CNN, I can’t even understand.
00:17:34 Speaker 1
It’s just a crawl going across ambassador to Afghanistan to make.
00:17:40 Speaker 1
Afghan army should #23,000 by the end of.
00:17:43 Speaker 1
The year.
00:17:43 Speaker 1
What the hell is that?
00:17:46 Speaker 1
You know it’s it’s a snippet at CBC.
00:17:49 Speaker 1
We often find the crawl was wrong.
00:17:51 Speaker 1
They’ve got information wrong because it’s written by people who aren’t journalists.
00:17:54 Speaker 1
But it’s some guy knows how to print off the typewriter and get it on the screen.
00:18:00 Speaker 1
I think they make these sort of judgments.
00:18:03 Speaker 1
And they make them as backwards, and I think their hiring processes are are extraordinarily weak and woeful.
00:18:10 Speaker 1
The, the, the managers of these.
00:18:13 Speaker 1
Who’ve come up with this experience because they have a tendency to put newscasts together based on some sort of.
00:18:20 Speaker 1
Dynamic they read about in the book.
00:18:21 Speaker 1
You have to have a male and a female.
00:18:24 Speaker 1
Now if the male is black, then the female.
00:18:26 Speaker 1
Must be white.
00:18:28 Speaker 1
If the female has blonde hair, then the guy must have black hair.
00:18:32 Speaker 1
If his name is Kasha Holly, then her name must be Smith.
00:18:36 Speaker 1
If he’s tall, she should be small, if she’s small.
00:18:39 Speaker 1
He should be.
00:18:40 Speaker 1
Then we got to work in a weatherman.
00:18:42 Speaker 1
Now the weatherman has to fit in here.
00:18:45 Speaker 1
If she’s blonde, he’s black, you know, then.
00:18:47 Speaker 1
He should be green.
00:18:48 Speaker 1
You know, I mean, and little attention is paid to the fact that maybe none of these people ever reported a story in their lives.
00:18:58 Speaker 1
And we have a lot of people who, if the public knew how dim they were and how inept they.
00:19:07 Speaker 1
That they couldn’t talk on television without looking into a teleprompt.
00:19:11 Speaker 1
I mean, they look good looking into a teleprompter, and you can start kidding yourself.
00:19:15 Speaker 1
They actually know what they’re saying.
00:19:16 Speaker 1
Some of them are so dumb that if you and I did this one.
00:19:20 Speaker 1
And I’ve done it with others, but I did this once and I remember this at CTV, I actually.
00:19:28 Speaker 1
Wrote a story.
00:19:29 Speaker 1
The guy read it.
00:19:31 Speaker 1
When he got off air, I said to him say how many people died in Pakistan in that story?
00:19:37 Speaker 1
And he said just a second I’ll tell you. And he looked back at his script and he would leaf through until he found he said 62, you know, I mean, well, and that exists today and it it.
00:19:48 Speaker 1
Somewhat distresses me, although.
00:19:50 Speaker 1
I’m happy in my own skin.
00:19:52 Speaker 1
I do my work and.
00:19:54 Speaker 1
And I’m quite content to continue doing it.
00:19:57 Speaker 1
I think we made some pretty grievous mistakes in in promoting the wrong kind of people and creating the wrong kind of management flows.
00:20:05 Speaker 1
And I think we, the journalists, gave away the farm and we’re paying for it.
00:20:11 Speaker 2
Wow, that’s really interesting.
00:20:12 Speaker 2
I’ve never heard a phrase that way, but it’s totally true.
00:20:14 Speaker 1
You talk to any journalist, any St.
00:20:17 Speaker 1
You play the what I’ve just said to them and they’ll nod the head.
00:20:20 Speaker 1
And say exactly.
00:20:22 Speaker 1
There’s just no question about it, but.
00:20:24 Speaker 1
But in fairness to this issue, I don’t want those jobs.
00:20:29 Speaker 1
I don’t want to come to work and be an.
00:20:32 Speaker 1
I want to go over to the White House and talk to people about what’s going on today.
00:20:36 Speaker 1
I was over at the Capitol Hill.
00:20:38 Speaker 1
I was at a Senate hearing.
00:20:40 Speaker 1
I actually watched and heard people do things I thought to them.
00:20:42 Speaker 1
Afterwards I heard what they said.
00:20:44 Speaker 1
I know what went on.
00:20:47 Speaker 1
Other reporters do know it just as well as I do.
00:20:50 Speaker 1
People sitting back and seeing it on television have no idea what this.
00:20:54 Speaker 1
The the nuances and the.
00:20:56 Speaker 1
Fine points that were that were happening.
00:20:58 Speaker 1
And so I don’t begrudge the situation on that.
00:21:01 Speaker 1
This is not.
00:21:03 Speaker 1
A death thing with me?
00:21:05 Speaker 1
It’s just.
00:21:06 Speaker 1
You know that’s the way it is.
00:21:07 Speaker 1
We made mistakes.
00:21:08 Speaker 1
We let these people get ahead and sometimes they make my life miserable because.
00:21:12 Speaker 1
They don’t see the obvious and.
00:21:15 Speaker 1
So you have to try to explain it to them, and sometimes it’s unexplainable.
00:21:21 Speaker 1
Sad story.
00:21:23 Speaker 2
And I’m going into this business.
00:21:25 Speaker 1
Well, no, no, I mean don’t.
00:21:26 Speaker 1
There’s no negatives, I mean.
00:21:28 Speaker 1
You know.
00:21:33 Speaker 1
And I I work with a lot of young people, they they’re going to be every bit as.
00:21:37 Speaker 1
Happy and as functional and as qualified.
00:21:40 Speaker 1
And then they’ll look back on on their career with every bit of his enjoyment and the sense of accomplishment than any of the people that I worked with and we.
00:21:47 Speaker 1
Came up with but it will be different.
00:21:50 Speaker 1
And a lot of them won’t know the differences because.
00:21:53 Speaker 1
They won’t have had the previous experience.
00:21:57 Speaker 1
And the good ones will make a change.
00:21:59 Speaker 1
You know, there are good young people coming up who are.
00:22:02 Speaker 1
Going to be every bit as good as.
00:22:05 Speaker 1
I just think that there’s a lot wrong with television.
00:22:08 Speaker 1
And one thing that our managers can never respond to.
00:22:11 Speaker 1
And can never answer satisfactorily and this is happening in.
00:22:16 Speaker 1
The CBC, but it’s happening everywhere.
00:22:18 Speaker 1
Is television is without argument the greatest communication tool ever invented?
00:22:24 Speaker 1
Ever invent?
00:22:26 Speaker 1
And fewer people are paying attention to the news.
00:22:28 Speaker 1
Well, that’s a fact.
00:22:30 Speaker 1
You know that the people who are.
00:22:32 Speaker 1
In charge have fail.
00:22:34 Speaker 1
Because it ought not to be that way.
00:22:36 Speaker 1
Maybe that you don’t want to watch a.
00:22:38 Speaker 1
Particular sitcom or what?
00:22:40 Speaker 1
But the idea that people are falling away from newscast.
00:22:44 Speaker 1
This communication tool is so.
00:22:47 Speaker 1
And that nobody can come up with better ideas.
00:22:49 Speaker 1
I’m not saying keep the newscasts, maybe get rid of all the newscast, do something else.
00:22:52 Speaker 1
But nobody in the management can come up with these answers, and I say it’s because they’re not in the manner born.
00:23:01 Speaker 2
OK.
00:23:01 Speaker 2
Is there a particular story that you’ve done that you’re proud of or you feel achievement because of?
00:23:08 Speaker 1
Yeah, a lot of the stories, I mean, the interview with the blue of us got Time magazine.
00:23:14 Speaker 1
Cover coverage because we interviewed a terrorist who laid claim to killing the the the Leon Klinghoffer, we tracked him down, found him in Algeria, did the story it got.
00:23:27 Speaker 1
International headlines.
00:23:28 Speaker 1
I think it put the face on.
00:23:33 Speaker 1
On the terrorism and what it was about.
00:23:36 Speaker 1
I was particularly proud of the stories that I did out of Afghanistan with going in with the Mujahideen at a time when they were fighting the Russians and I think.
00:23:48 Speaker 1
I think I and a few others who did that kind of thing.
00:23:53 Speaker 1
In some way or another made it easier for them to eventually get rid of the.
00:24:00 Speaker 1
The Russians out of the country had focused Western countries on the possibilities of what may be able what what was going on.
00:24:08 Speaker 1
I didn’t do it with that in mind.
00:24:09 Speaker 1
I did it because I wanted people to know what was going on and I think that was.
00:24:14 Speaker 1
Useful I think the work I did in the Middle East and trying.
00:24:18 Speaker 1
To explain that.
00:24:20 Speaker 1
What was going on there was good work.
00:24:23 Speaker 1
I’m very proud of the work I did over the years in northern.
00:24:27 Speaker 1
Because I think we exposed.
00:24:31 Speaker 1
Of dysfunctional society that wasn’t working correctly and.
00:24:36 Speaker 1
And now, as a result of that publicity, there are changes and people are living more equally in Northern Ireland, it’s still a difficult place, but.
00:24:44 Speaker 1
It’s getting better all.
00:24:46 Speaker 1
And I take a certain amount of prior to being one or.
00:24:48 Speaker 1
Leading journalist to.
00:24:50 Speaker 1
Have done that and on a smaller scale, but no less important.
00:25:01 Speaker 1
In Britain, when I.
00:25:04 Speaker 1
Put Huey to.
00:25:06 Speaker 1
Trudeau’s claim that he was going to somehow engage the common market in Canada would have a congratulate that disappeared, and I think it saves a lot of people time and money.
00:25:16 Speaker 1
And helped our country move away from something that was not good.
00:25:20 Speaker 1
I got a guy out of jail who was wrongfully in prison.
00:25:26 Speaker 1
You know.
00:25:28
You. You.
00:25:29 Speaker 1
You asked this question then of course I’ll hang up and remember 9 of the things I did because quite frankly, you know I haven’t entered my dotage yet.
00:25:38 Speaker 1
And I mean by that, my career dotage.
00:25:41 Speaker 1
And so I have a tendency to think of today’s story of tomorrow’s story as being the most important and not yesterday’s stories which.
00:25:51 Speaker 1
You know, I have many that I take.
00:25:52 Speaker 1
Great pride in.
00:25:53 Speaker 1
And people will come up to me at.
00:25:54 Speaker 1
Some point and they’ll say to me.
00:25:56 Speaker 1
I remember that story you did, and I have totally forgotten.
00:26:00 Speaker 1
I didn’t realize that, you know, I mean, I did the seal hunt.
00:26:04 Speaker 1
I was the first reporter to go out on the ice in the 60s on the seal.
00:26:08 Speaker 1
Now some people will say exposing the seals.
00:26:13 Speaker 1
And the fact that the hunt was going on and building up this world protest and all of that.
00:26:18 Speaker 1
And the clubbing of seals was the wrong thing to have done with that.
00:26:20 Speaker 1
I didn’t do it to protect the seals or whatever.
00:26:23 Speaker 1
I did it because it was there, but certainly it created an enormous.
00:26:28 Speaker 1
Situation the largest audience ever to tune in to a program in Canada was to tune in to W 5.
00:26:35 Speaker 1
When I did an interview with Margaret Trudeau about her marriage breaking up, I don’t think that’s particularly profound, but I managed to get her to do it and she did it and people understood better what was going on.
00:26:47 Speaker 1
Oh God.
00:26:48 Speaker 1
You know, I just.
00:26:50 Speaker 1
It’s just it’s.
00:26:51 Speaker 1
I can’t remember them all, and I’m sure I’m missing some that.
00:26:54 Speaker 1
Are more important than others.
00:26:56 Speaker 2
That’s OK.
00:26:57 Speaker 2
They can call you back if they need.
00:26:58 Speaker 2
To fill in anymore gaps.
00:27:00 Speaker 2
Do you happen to have any photos or clips of significant events that you’ve covered?
00:27:05 Speaker 1
Yeah, somewhere I always think to myself, I got to save the tapes and I never have.
00:27:10 Speaker 1
Isn’t that a terrible thing?
00:27:12 Speaker 1
But you know, the fact of the matter is I put tapes inside and I’m just looking at a pack over there of 6 and I put away.
00:27:18 Speaker 1
They’ve been sitting there for six months.
00:27:19 Speaker 1
I have no idea what they are.
00:27:21 Speaker 1
And I don’t think I’d ever play them.
00:27:25 Speaker 1
They’re in.
00:27:26 Speaker 1
The CBC library, I presume CTV is a library and the NBC is a library.
00:27:32 Speaker 1
The the News museum down here.
00:27:34 Speaker 1
I don’t know if you’re familiar with this, but the news museum.
00:27:38 Speaker 1
Is is this?
00:27:41 Speaker 1
Place has started a few years ago.
00:27:43 Speaker 1
Sort of a pay on to journalism.
00:27:46 Speaker 1
Britain television. And when you go in the door, there’s a 45 foot television screen.
00:27:52 Speaker 1
And they have a circular tape that runs on. This is about about 5060 reports and one of them is mine. From a report I did for N.
00:28:03 Speaker 1
And people will come up to me every once in a while.
00:28:05 Speaker 1
Say you’re not going to believe it.
00:28:06 Speaker 1
I walked.
00:28:06 Speaker 1
In there and.
00:28:06 Speaker 1
There you.
00:28:07 Speaker 1
Were 45 feet tall.
00:28:08 Speaker 1
On the wall, I’ve never seen it.
00:28:12 Speaker 1
But yeah, I’ve got little things around that I I tell you, I.
00:28:17 Speaker 1
It’s not.
00:28:19 Speaker 1
It’s not.
00:28:21 Speaker 1
Something I’m attempting to do I just don’t live in yesterday and I don’t hide from living in yesterday.
00:28:27 Speaker 1
I’m sure there’s a point at which I’m going to sit down.
00:28:30 Speaker 1
Maybe write a book or title or do whatever.
00:28:32 Speaker 1
Whatever I retire or whatever.
00:28:34 Speaker 2
The dotage stage.
00:28:35 Speaker 1
Yeah, and my daughter says, but I can’t.
00:28:37 Speaker 1
I really don’t think so.
00:28:38 Speaker 1
I just.
00:28:39 Speaker 1
I like the job I like today.
00:28:42 Speaker 1
Like this morning’s story?
00:28:44 Speaker 1
I’m looking forward to doing the story tomorrow.
00:28:45 Speaker 1
You know, I mean, I I don’t.
00:28:48 Speaker 1
I don’t think in.
00:28:51 Speaker 1
In those kinds of.
00:28:53 Speaker 1
Of terms I I wish I did.
00:28:55 Speaker 1
I’m sure it would be fun to have all of this and I, you know, I’ll be driving along someday.
00:29:00 Speaker 1
And I’ll say to myself.
00:29:02 Speaker 1
Pay the $10,000.
00:29:04 Speaker 1
But I’ll never do it.
00:29:05 Speaker 1
Yeah, you know, I got kids and a wife.
00:29:11 Speaker 1
I play baseball still and I get a game.
00:29:14 Speaker 1
I get things to do.
00:29:15 Speaker 1
And I I don’t sit around.
00:29:17 Speaker 1
Looking at old tapes.
00:29:20 Speaker 1
I did it.
00:29:20 Speaker 1
I’m proud of it.
00:29:21 Speaker 1
Move along.
00:29:24 Speaker 2
OK.
00:29:24 Speaker 2
Is there anything else you think that you want them to know about?
00:29:28 Speaker 1
No, you could.
00:29:29 Speaker 1
I could go on and talk for hours.
00:29:31 Speaker 1
I’m better at answering questions than I am at talking.
00:29:34 Speaker 2
OK, well.
00:29:35 Speaker 1
You know, if somebody.
00:29:36 Speaker 1
Wants to ask me a question about the old days.
00:29:38 Speaker 1
I’d be happy to tell you I met a lot of very wonderful people.
00:29:41 Speaker 1
Inside the Canadian media.
00:29:44 Speaker 1
I guess at one time or another I knew everybody that was in the business.
00:29:49 Speaker 1
And you know, they were all a great bunch of people, and I think Canadian journalism.
00:29:53 Speaker 1
Was good journalism.
00:29:55 Speaker 1
And I was.
00:29:57 Speaker 1
Very happy to be.
00:29:57 Speaker 1
Part of it, and I intend on being part of it until someone says go home.
00:30:02 Speaker 2
I’m sure no.
00:30:02 Speaker 1
One, will you never know.
00:30:06 Speaker 2
OK.
00:30:06 Speaker 2
Well, that was all my questions for today.
00:30:07 Speaker 1
Not a problem.
00:30:08 Speaker 1
Call me back if you need anything more.
00:30:10 Speaker 2
Thank you.
00:30:10 Speaker 2
I really enjoyed talking to you.
00:30:11 Speaker 1
And I enjoyed talking to you.
00:30:12 Speaker 2
Have a great day. Bye.
00:30:13 Speaker 1
Right.