Back in 1979, when I was a reporter at The Advocate, in the small town of Mitchell, Ontario, Canada, a feud broke out between town council and its police force.
The police chief, in particular, and some members of council, had been stirring a pot of miscommunication and misunderstanding for some time – I did a fair amount of stirring myself – and it eventually spilled over that year.
The resulting furor began attracting the attention of the news media outside of Mitchell, beginning with the daily newspaper in Stratford where I now live and then extending to larger papers further away and even TV stations in Toronto and London.
One Mitchell businessman, Tom Ryan, who owned a lunch counter on the main street at the time, was especially vocal in his support of then-Police Chief Stewart Stark and in his opposition to the approach town council was taking to its “police problems.”
Besides appearing at council meetings and writing letters on the issue to the local newspaper, Mr. Ryan also started up a petition calling on the town to set up a police commission and abandon the committee of council which had been in charge of police matters.
This was escalating the debate to a new high – or low – depending on your perspective at the time.
One day, my phone rang in The Mitchell Advocate office. A woman on the line from CBC Radio’s As It Happens program in Toronto called to say the show was trying to reach Tom Ryan but hadn’t had any luck. She wondered if I could find him and promised she’d call back in 15 minutes.
This is when you know you are living in a small town.
Dashing across the street to the lunch counter, I found Mr. Ryan flipping hamburgers at his grill. When I told him As It Happens wanted to speak with him, he put down his spatula and strode across Ontario Street to my desk at the newspaper.
When the phone rang again, all of us who worked at the paper got on the other phones in the office so we could listen in.
“In 30 seconds, Barbara Frum will come on the line,” the radio show’s advance person said to Mr. Ryan. Ms. Frum was one of the no-nonsense hosts of the show. Her son David Frum can often be seen on TV commenting on U.S. politics today.
I don’t know how Tom Ryan or the rest of us thought this big-time journalist from Toronto would handle this story, but we weren’t long in finding out.
Barbara Frum didn’t take his side. Or the side of the police.
But neither was she pro-town council.
One of the things she did do, pretty abruptly as I recall, was to question Mr. Ryan’s motives in getting up his petition. She asked him point blank if this wasn’t just a start of his campaign to become the next mayor of Mitchell.
No shrinking violet himself, Tom Ryan handled his exchange with Barbara Frum well. But he was not given an easy ride. On the other hand, he was given the chance to express his views to however many thousands of people listened to As It Happens at that time.
As it did happen, Tom Ryan never did run for mayor. A police commission was set up. The turmoil finally did die down and there is peace between the town and its police force today.
Many people are saying, this week, that what made Barbara Frum such an effective interviewer was her lack of fear of others. She never stood in awe of the high and mighty, nor was she afraid to take on the ordinary man or woman whom other journalists might be inclined to tip-toe around.
She was great.
©1992 Jim Hagarty
