CTV news anchor Lloyd Robertson holds a glass of celebratory champagne after his final newscast on Sept. 1, 2011.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
Like most Canadians of my generation, I grew up watching Lloyd Robertson on the nightly news.
He was Canada’s Walter Cronkite. A broadcaster’s deep voice and the smoothest of deliveries. He was a reassuring presence even in the toughest of times.
In my years as Ottawa bureau chief at Sun Media and later the National Post, I had the opportunity to briefly say hello to him, but I never knew Lloyd, the man in front of the camera.
It wasn’t until 2005 when I got the call from CTV News president Robert Hurst to head up the Ottawa bureau that I got to really know Lloyd.
I had appeared on TV panels, but I had never written for TV or done live on-cameras, which were a big part of my new role. Needless to say, I was scared stiff, and my early live performances were a disaster.
I was particularly nervous about doing live talkbacks with Lloyd Robertson, who was a Canadian icon. That’s when I discovered his kindness and compassion. He was so understanding as he tried to calm down the nervous Nellie in the Ottawa studio. “Just take a deep breath and relax,’ he would say to me in his soothing manner.
Over time, I got over my nervousness and developed a close bond with Lloyd. The two of us, along with Craig Oliver, who I replaced as bureau chief, had come from small towns and we cherished the values of those communities. For all his fame, Lloyd – who never wanted to be called Mr. Robertson – did not have an ego. He remained grounded in the values of hard work, honesty and decency.
Lloyd Robertson looks over at the teleprompter as he prepares for his final newscast.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
I was hired to break news, and that’s what I did – much to Lloyd’s delight. He beamed when you delivered scoops. He also loved a well-told human interest story.
He was a hands-on anchor. He was involved in all the stories that went in the newscast, particularly the top block before the first advertising break. Together with his chief producer, Wendy Freeman, who went on to be CTV president, and later David Hughes, they shaped the number one nightly newscast.
At 4 p.m. every weekday, the Ottawa bureau would have a conference call with Lloyd and his team to pitch our stories. You had to be prepared because Lloyd asked penetrating questions. If he didn’t like your answers, the story never made it to air.
The one rule that Lloyd insisted upon was balance. You could deliver a hard-hitting story as long as it presented all sides fairly. As he used to say, the people who watch his newscast come from all political stripes. He did not want anyone to think that he favoured one political party over another.
To this day, I never knew where Lloyd stood politically. He had warm and respectful relationships with all prime ministers during his many decades at CTV.
When I began joining Lloyd on the annual Christmas interview with the prime minister, who was, at the time, Stephen Harper, I learned how Lloyd did his homework. We went over the questions – discarding and adding until we felt confident of getting a strong news story out of the hour-long interview. I played the bad cop to Lloyd’s good cop. But as always, he insisted that the questions be asked in a non-confrontational manner.
Obituary: Lloyd Robertson, former CTV News chief anchor, dies at 92
Occasionally, we would clash. I found out that then-foreign affairs minister Maxime Bernier had a girlfriend whose deceased boyfriend, a Montreal loan shark, had had ties to the Quebec Nomads chapter of the Hells Angels.
Lloyd did not want to run the story because he felt it was too personal. He felt that people’s private lives are none of anyone’s business.
While I generally agree with that view, I argued that this crossed the line and that it was in the public interest to broadcast. Our media lawyer backed me up.
Lloyd said he would think about it when he went home for dinner with his wife. By the time he returned to prepare for the newscast, he had changed his mind. This happened on other occasions as well. Lloyd had an open mind and was receptive to the give-and-take of newsroom debates about what stories would make the lineup.
When he didn’t like a story, he had a masterful way of getting you to make it presentable. I was assigned a story on one of the Harper government’s environmental policies. It was a complicated story involving regulations.
Lloyd Robertson on the set of the CTV National News in 1997.Bryce Duffey/The Globe and Mail
Lloyd knew that I tried to write scripts in a way that my mom would immediately understand. He called me to say he had read the script and then asked ever so politely whether my mom would understand the story. Of course, he was right. It was far too complicated for a TV audience at 11 p.m., so I rewrote it to his satisfaction.
The only time I saw him lose his cool was when he didn’t like a story a reporter had written on the Senate, and he removed part of the script that he felt was unfair. He knew the reporter, who is now CTV Ottawa bureau chief, would be upset, so after the newscast, Lloyd wrote him a note explaining the decision and telling him how valuable he was to the team.
Because while viewers see the anchor as the face of the news, the TV news business cannot function without the behind-the-scenes technical staff: producers, camera personnel, editors, script writers and make-up artists. Everyone who worked for Lloyd would not have an unkind word. He was a gentleman’s journalist who treated everyone with respect.
Eventually, Lloyd retired, but even after I moved on to The Globe and Mail, he would occasionally send me a note of approval or a phone call when I hit a home run with a scoop. Once a newshound, always a newshound.
I loved the man. Good night, Lloyd.