KINSELLA: Lloyd Robertson a true, old school journalist without bias
· Toronto Sun
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Of the many nice things said about Lloyd Robertson in recent days, a longtime Conservative strategist had the very best take on the legendary TV news anchor:
“I don’t know how he voted.”
And it was true. Robertson, who passed away last Tuesday at the age of 92, was a true journalist from the old school: he was without bias. He presented the news for 41 years, on radio and then TV, on CBC and then CTV. And, in all of that time, he was scrupulously, rigorously fair.
He was also very good at what he did. At Carleton University’s School of Journalism, one of our TV professors marvelled at Robertson’s skill in making a complex, confusing world understandable, if only for the night. “He could read the phone book and make it sound interesting,” said the prof (back in the days when phone books were still a thing).
Treated people with courtesy, civility
I got to know Robertson while serving as a Liberal pundit at CTV News. I was a regular on Canada AM and would appear on the network’s political panels, usually during the day. Occasionally, however, I’d run into Robertson in the makeup room at CTV’s Agincourt studios in Scarborough, and I would observe him treating visiting prime ministers and plebeians with equal amounts of courtesy and civility.
On special occasions, like election nights, I’d get invited to appear on Robertson’s show to provide commentary. Dozens of editors and sound and camera people would swirl around, offering the latest numbers or intel, but Robertson was always the calm at the centre of the news storm. Nothing seemed to faze him.
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He treated all of us — Liberals, Conservatives, New Democrats, Reformers, whatever — equally. He made it all look easy, too, and he put us at ease.
But the greatest compliment you could pay Robertson was what that Conservative said: you couldn’t tell which way Lloyd Robertson leaned politically. You couldn’t tell which side he favoured — or if he favoured any side at all.
Voice of a different era
Robertson was therefore the voice of a different and better era. Before social media, before the internet, we would all gather — parents, grandparents, kids — to watch his show (or that of Peter Mansbridge, Peter Truman, Barbara Frum or Knowlton Nash) to learn what had happened in the world on that day.
There were just as many Conservatives, Liberals and New Democrats back then. There were just as many points of view. But Robertson and others understood that their role was not to offer opinions about the day’s events. Their role was to relate the news without fear or favour. That was way more important than opinion.
The newspaper you hold in your hand leans conservative (although they still publish this deconstructed Liberal). The Toronto Star leans liberal. Readers of newspapers understand that all newspapers have a particular point of view. They have a bias, and they’re entitled to it.
But broadcasters shouldn’t substitute news with opinion, ever. Broadcasters, radio or TV, make use of the public airwaves that are owned by us, the public.
Broadcasters are entrusted by us to be always truthful and balanced. It is manifestly wrong for a broadcaster to twist and manipulate the news to fit a single ideology. (Like the CBC now does, shamefully and openly, every day.)
Understood his role to inform
Robertson understood that. He understood that his role was to tell us the news so that we could be faithfully informed — and, if we wanted, to later form an opinion about what we’d learned. With Robertson, all political persuasions were welcome, and treated with respect.
With the passing of a great and good man like Robertson, will we ever get back to those days? It seems unlikely. The internet, which has brutalized traditional news-gathering, favours shouting, invective and uninformed opinions. It is a vanity press for the deranged, and all of us are the worse for it.
And that’s why so many of us mourn the passing of Robertson this week. Not because of nostalgia. Because — along with being unfailingly respectful and decent — he was a giant in a time when genuine journalism was genuinely better.
Those days were better, you see, because Robertson presented the news.
He didn’t invent the news.