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Taking on the bossDoug Creighton and the freedom he gave to his writers
I wasn't a "Day Oner" at The Sun, joining up instead seven years later in November 1978. And it was six years after that, on Jan. 22, 1985, to be precise, that I first learned how passionately Doug Creighton believed in giving his writers freedom of expression. Even when he thought they were dead wrong. Even when he thought they had betrayed him. Even when they were driving him nuts. Like me. What had happened was that The Sun had just endorsed Roy McMurtry to replace Bill Davis, who had previously announced his intention to retire as Conservative premier. McMurtry is today the esteemed Chief Justice of Ontario, but back then he was known as "Roy McHeadline," due to his love of and aptitude for publicity. He was also a close friend of Doug's, who was backing him in the leadership race -- as was Paul Godfrey -- and raising money for him. The problem was that McMurtry was also the most left-wing or "red Tory" of the four candidates in the running, including Frank Miller, the eventual winner, Larry Grossman and Dennis Timbrell. And so, maybe it shouldn't have come as a surprise that on Jan. 21, 1985, under the headline "Roy's our boy," The Sun announced in an editorial that it was backing McMurtry, whom it admitted was a longshot (he ended up finishing fourth) for a variety of reasons. But the one that really set the cat among the pigeons was The Sun's view that McMurtry was best able to keep the Tories in "the middle of the political spectrum ... in the face of the right-wing movement not only here but around the world." Well, needless to say, that did it. The next day just about anyone with a column -- Editor Barbara Amiel, Queen's Park columnist Claire Hoy, and a young political reporter -- me -- laced into Doug for what we saw as a betrayal of the conservative principles upon which The Sun was founded. Full of beans and, come to think of it, pretty full of myself, I started out my column by noting that "Doug Creighton built this newspaper up from scratch -- I didn't," in retrospect a spectacularly pretentious and dumb thing for me to say. And then: "The only candidate The Sun could possibly have endorsed if it cared anything about ideological consistency was Industry Minister Frank Miller ...What I have always admired about The Sun -- even before I worked here -- was that it actually stood for something ... Yesterday, we said 'Roy's our boy' and turned our backs on that credo." The next day, smug and satisfied with myself for having "stood up to the boss," I was reading at my desk at Queen's Park when the phone rang. I'll never forget what came next. "Lorrie? Doug. I would have thought that if you were going to dump on the editorial opinion of this paper along with, it seems, just about everyone of your colleagues, you might have at least had the courtesy to inform me beforehand." Omigawd. I had po'd the boss. My pretence of courage crumbled. I stammered out -- well, I don't remember what I stammered out -- but it was pretty much an abject apology. The thing of it was, Doug really wasn't upset with what I'd written, but rather that I hadn't given him a "heads up" first -- as a simple, common courtesy -- as one friend would do for another, so that he would have known it was coming. Needless to say, at the time I was so rattled by his call that I immediately went down to the press gallery lounge to inform everyone I was in big trouble with the boss, whereupon one of my colleagues, smelling a story, was soon on the phone to Doug, wondering if I or anyone else would be fired. Doug just laughed it off and said of course not -- that we were entitled to our views, he just thought we were wrong. That day taught me an important lesson, not only about The Sun -- which has never abandoned Doug's belief in freedom of expression -- but about what that belief really means. It taught me that the person who shows he (or she) is most committed to journalistic freedom at a newspaper is not the columnist who takes advantage of it, but the publisher who practises it, even when it hurts. Paul Godfrey, for example, used to let columns run in The Sun so personally critical of him, that I'm not sure I would have done the same in his position. Freedom of expression. Easy to preach. Hard to practise. And all a part of the genius of the founder of The Sun. |
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