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Write it, don't talk about it


by Judi McLeod
November 25, 2002

His name was Sean McCann, and his voice, calling out to me in a loud brogue across the newsroom of the Toronto Sun, had chills running up and down my spine.

Sean was a Sun editor who was keeping reporters in line in the mid-1980s. A no-nonsense type, when it came to his job, he always insisted on the best. He would keep your for hours in the newsroom filling in story ‘holes’ in spite of your reporter mates waiting for you at a nearby local watering hole, known as Crooks.

It was at Crooks where we reporters complained about editors like Sean, exaggerating his quirks as long as the beer money held out.

It was this snarky little editor who knocked the starch out of me soon after my arrival at the cheeky daily. Cocky about winning an award as a municipal affairs reporter at the now defunct Daily Times in Brampton, I got to learn in a hurry you were only as good as your latest scoop. Laurels from other newspapers did not impress Mr. Sean in the least, and snippety full-of-themselves reporters even less.

I can still quiver at the memory of his voice that bellowed, "McLeod!" when he had discovered something that I had done wrong. "Write it, don’t talk about it!" was one of his favourite retorts when any reporter was trying to impress him about an upcoming story.

For all of his bellicose ways and deadline nerves, he had a sympathetic side that sometimes softened his style.

In those days, rookies or newcomers conducted a lot of menial tasks at the Sun. Reading through letters to the editor and verifying that they had actually been written by the authors who sent them was one. Having to wake politicians in the wee hours of the morning when the editors decided to go after late front-page news for replate was the worst. Nor could you beg off by pretending that the politician was in bed and not answering the telephone. Sean simply dialed the number and handed the receiver over to you.

A couple of times, my assigned task was to wake the late Paul Rimstead from his sleeping spot in, of all places, the lounge adjacent to the ladies’ washroom.

But my most embarrassing moment was much worse than stirring "The Rimmer" from his slumbers. Not fully realizing my lack of experience with computers, Sean once shouted out "McLeod!" before ordering me to take the telephone and type in Rimstead’s column. Rimstead, calling from a telephone booth in a shopping mall where he was drinking with Eddie Shack, was a model of patience as he read me off his current column.

Rather than admitting my little computer problem to Sean when he assigned me the task, I was hoping against hope that things would just be all right. When Rimstead finished with those famous words, "that’s a 30", his column became lost from my screen as I hadn’t known how to save it properly.

I put him on hold, and ran, red-faced to the editor’s pool to ‘fess up to Sean what had just happened.

"Well, get the blazes back over there and tell The Rimmer he’ll just have to read his column over to you again!" he barked.

"Hell, I can’t read it back because I made it up in my head in the first place and have already had a couple of drinks too many!" said Rimstead when I made my feeble request.

The next day, editors had to come up with a note to explain the empty space in Paul Rimstead’s regular column. I got a lecture from Sean, who demanded to be told what else I didn’t know how to do. "To drive," I barely squeaked.

"Well don’t worry about Rimstead embarrassing you in front of the others, ‘cause that’s just not his style," he told me.

Sean’s friend Gordie Walsh, a reporter who went on to be another marvelous editor, laughed mirthfully when he learned from me about the lost column caper.

I lost touch with Sean over the years, and can never seem to get hold of Walsh to see where he might be.

While I don’t know his exact physical whereabouts, I know where Sean is in memory, walking through the CanadaFreePress Elm Street offices, shouting "Write it, don’t talk about it!"

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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