Journalism is a career path I can be quite scared of, yet I can’t look away from it entirely. There is something heroic about writing stories. Since those stories are meant to be factual, there’s a guarantee that a number of people will be caused to think and reflect on the world we live in. Before you know it, you’ve played a part in changing the world. And there’s a bonus point if you get to report on the scene; you get to live your story. That’s what keeps me from abandoning the career path once and for all.
Peter Mansbridge of The National has left his position as the main anchor. On July the first, 2017, Canada Day, Peter Mansbridge appeared on screen for the last time, saying he was not a “fan of long goodbyes,” but rather a “fan of long thank yous.”
So he went on to thank everyone he could in the amount of time he had, thanking first Gaston Cherpentier, who hired him back in 1968, and the rest of the workforce at CBC.
Mansbridge’s path to journalism is the most unique one has ever heard in Canada. He dropped out of high school in Ottawa, Ontario, then served the Royal Navy in 1966 and 1977. Later he found a job as a ticket agent at Churchill Airport in Churchill, Manitoba. One fateful day, he was ordered to announce the next flight, and Mr. Cherpentier, who was the CBC manager at the time, happened to be there. He liked Mansbridge’s voice and hired him to work at CBC. Mansbridge was only 19 years old at the time. “It was the 1960s and I wasn’t a hippie or druggie…” he said, according to an article from the magazine for senoir living called Inspired, “but I was living a pretty carefree life and I wasn’t focused on the future and then suddenly I realized I’ve been very lucky,” “I’m having fun, I’m making some money, but there’s no road out of this. I said to myself, ‘you can’t keep letting these opportunities pass you by; you’ve got to work at it and you’ve got to take advantage of it.’ And I did. And it led me on a long, winding road to where I am now.”
He indeed took advantage of the opportunity quite well, when you look at his impressive work experiences. On screen, he has anchored coverage of major world events such as the 9\11 attacks and the Gulf War, while reporting the fall of the Berlin Wall, the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales. These are only mere glimpses into his incredibly vivid career.
But with all its glory, journalism has its own set of challenges, and Peter Mansbridge tells a tale no different from that. “The hours can be really long… an eight-hour day is not part of this job,” he said. “You’re kind of ‘on’ all the time and that can get to you. It costs personal time; it costs family time, so it doesn’t come with all glory, there’s an expense to it, as well. So, I won’t miss that, but it’s a decision I made that the job was really important to me.”
Mansbridge has a collection of items that remind him of the places he had the chance to visit as a reporter, such as pieces of the Berlin Wall and the Great Wall of China, and a bracelet from South Africa with the numbers “46664,” which was Mandela’s prisoner number at Robben Island. He also has dirt from Vimy Ridge. His trip at the tunnels under Vimy Ridge is one of his most memorable moments as a journalist, stating that when he came out of the tunnel, he “had never felt more Canadian.” “There I was in France,” he said, “visiting something almost one hundred years old, and it was incredibly moving.”
While we can only dream of having a CBC manager come up to us and hire us, that is not what’s important. What’s important is that Mansbridge was handed an opportunity out of nowhere and he took it in stride, as he went on to report major world events, events that he no doubts will ever forget, at least not easily. He is one of many Canadian journalists who helped define Canadian Pride to the world. As he left the National, he left behind a story for many young hopeful journalists to get inspired by. It teaches us that a passion for telling stories is an important asset in journalism. For that, to Mr. Mansbridge, I say thank you, and goodbye, for now.
Sources:
https://www.cbc.ca/mediacentre/bio/peter-mansbridge