by Judi McLeod
april 12, 2004
It was an email from a perfect stranger that got me to wondering again about the whereabouts of Canadian journalist Michael Woloschuk.
…"Stumbled on your story about "Fletch" and was quite moved. Maybe I should drink more coffee, wake up first before you make me weep? What happened to Mr. W?" wrote Gordon C. Sivell, a former television journalist now writing a book.
I last wrote about the missing reporter in September 2000.
In the days when we was hanging out in our office, we called Woloschuk "Fletch" after the reporter played by Chevy Chase in the movie of the same name, and the nickname stuck.
In the early-1990s when Toronto Free Press had offices at 111 Elizabeth Street, Woloshuk literally lived there.
We met when Neil Reynolds, my former boss at the Kingston Whig Standard sent him my way. "If you’re ever in trouble in Toronto, go find Judi McLeod" was Reynolds’s advice.
In those days, Woloschuk was the latest Frank reporter. Bunking down in somewhat seedy St. Nicholas Street digs with a telephone and a fax, a scrap with the landlord had rendered him temporarily homeless.
after retrieving by devious means from the landlord his camera equipment and duvet, Woloschuk became a permanent resident of 111 Elizabeth Street for the whole of one winter.
Fearless, he absolutely lived for his job and I can still smell the scotch from his coffee cup when he was pounding out a late-night story.
Frank editors had decided to do a few cover stories, dateline Toronto. Woloschuk and I worked together filing stories back to the Ottawa magazine. at first, we were jointly enthusiastic, having convinced ourselves that we were destined to set the journalistic world afire.
The pattern of our days ran the same. after I left for home (conveniently just up the street), Woloschuk would turn in for the night on the sofa of office colleague Vince Tassone. On sleepless nights, he had Tassone’s stereo and television for company. Half the time, he’d be on the telephone hunting down fresh stories. Early in the morning, he would dash out to shower at a nearby health club, and be back at the office in time for a breakfast of coffee and bagels.
Woloschuk, who lived for a good story, was the product of the aforementioned Neil Reynolds, who had taught him well.
When word eventually leaked out that Frank had a reporter in residence at TFP, a few local politicians called to see if we could "frank" their political opponents.
Naturally nosy, loaded with an easy charm, and afraid of none save for the posse of women constantly on the look out for him, Woloschuk would go to almost any length to unearth the facts. Once when working on a cover story about a prominent politician of the day, under the cheeky headline, Frannie Get Your Gun, he was hell-bent for leather to get to a Northern Ontario cemetery to find the grave of the victim shot by the politician, for a cover photo. Tassone, who in those days wore an ankle-length black winter coat, went off grave hunting with him. armed with a map of the cemetery, the pair arrived in the snow-covered cemetery at dusk. They hoped to paw their way through the snow to find the right grave before darkness closed in. Finding it just in the nick of time, they took pictures and had to make their way back through the cemetery with a flashlight. Village housewives peeking out at the eerie scene through lace curtains must have wondered about the graveyard ghouls.
Woloschuk’s nerve was legendary. another one of his Frank cover stories detailed the long ago romance of a politician with a member of the local mob. as the story was being written, an anonymous telephone caller issued a death threat. Unflappable, Fletch merely moved his lap computer down to the nearest bar, where he concluded: "This is a better office anyway, because it never runs out of scotch."
When he eventually moved on to greener pastures, he left behind what was to become an enduring legacy: Canadian boxing champ George Chuvalo. along with some of his television cronies, Fletch had invited me to meet the champ at an Etobicoke bar. With his charming raconteur ways, Chuvalo impressed me right away, and he wrote a column for TFP up until the death of his first wife, Lynne.
For the first few weeks after the departure of Woloschuk, life was a little duller around TFP offices, particularly when Tassone went around forlornly whistling the theme tune from the movie Fletch.
His current whereabouts remain a mystery. Frank reporters Steve Collins and Justin Boudreau told me the last they heard Woloschuk was in Singapore. all means to find him there were unsuccessful.
The Internet is, of course, a vast resource and I’m hoping that this second column brings back some word of Michael (Fletch) Woloschuk–wherever he is.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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