Lloyd Robertson, giant

Of the many nice things said about Lloyd Robertson in recent days, a longtime Conservative strategist had the very best take on the legendary TV news anchor:

"I don't know how he voted."

And it was true. Robertson, who passed away this week at the age of 92, was a true journalist from the old school: he was without bias. He presented the news for 41 years, on radio and then TV, on CBC and then CTV. And, in all of that time, he was scrupulously, rigorously fair.

He was also very good at what he did. At Carleton University's School of Journalism, one of our TV professors marveled at Robertson's skill in making a complex, confusing world understandable, if only for the night. "He could read the phone book and make it sound interesting," said the prof (back in the days when phone books were still a thing).

I got to know Robertson while serving as a Liberal pundit at CTV News. I was a regular on Canada AM and would appear on the network's political panels, usually during the day. Occasionally, however, I'd run into Robertson in the makeup room at CTV's Agincourt studios, and I would observe him treating visiting Prime Ministers and plebeians with equal amounts of courtesy and civility.

On special occasions, like election nights, I'd get invited to appear on Robertson's show to provide commentary. Dozens of editors and sound and camera people would swirl around, offering the latest numbers or intel, but Robertson was always the calm at the centre of the news storm. Nothing seemed to faze him.

He treated all of us - Liberals, Conservatives, New Democrats, Reformers, whatever - equally. He made it all look easy, too, and he put us at ease.

But the greatest compliment you could pay Lloyd Robertson was what that Conservative said: you couldn't tell which way Lloyd Robertson leaned, politically. You couldn't tell which side he favored - or if he favored any side at all.

Robertson was therefore the voice of a different and better era. Before social media, before the Internet, we would all gather - parents, grandparents, kids - to watch his show (or that of Peter Mansbridge, Peter Truman, Barbara Frum or Knowlton Nash) to learn what had happened in the world on that day.

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