Mandryk on Mandryk: A retrospective of 43 years of opinion at the Regina Leader-Post

After serving as the Regina Leader Post's columnist for more than 40 years, Murray Mandryk is now enjoying retirement. He's seen here with his trusty sidekick Lola. (Hallee Mandryk/CTV News)

Editorial note: Hallee Mandryk is a video journalist for CTV News, and the daughter of Murray Mandryk. Murray did not want to do this interview. But thanks to the fact that Hallee has spent the last 24 years practicing the art of arguing with Murray, he has begrudgingly agreed to participate in this editorial.

After 43 years of igniting debate and discourse with the people of Saskatchewan, Leader-Post columnist Murray Mandryk has arrived at his well-deserved retirement.

This means that it’s now time to share his worst kept secret: Murray didn’t care if you agreed with the perspectives in his columns. His goal was to get you to be critical of the world around you.

“Politics is so important to Saskatchewan and Regina and it was just something I kind of gravitated towards for reasons I’m not sure,” he recalled. “I wasn’t a political animal or had the political bug or anything else. It just seemed an important thing to do, I guess that’s kind of why I went in that direction, because it seemed to have the most purpose.”

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The youngest of six children, Murray was born to a pair of hard-working dairy farmers and grew up just outside of Grandview, a one-horse town on the road to Dauphin, Man.

Murray admits he was no scholar (and still struggles with dyslexia) but he decided he’d try to make a career from his writing.

“I just always liked to write, even if I wasn’t all that s*** hot at it,” he said.

His first jobs bounced him from Winnipeg, to Fort McMurray, to Portage La Prairie, until he eventually landed at the Regina Leader-Post.

“That was all within basically a year and a half period,” he explained. “I went to Regina thinking I’d be there for a couple of years, and then I met a girl.”

That girl, Shawna, was out of Murray’s league, and he knew it. For their first date, they went to see the film Romancing the Stone. However, Murray had secretly went to the theatre the day before, to ensure Shawna would like the movie, and the rest is history.

Four eventful decades

Throughout the 43 years he spent writing about provincial politics, Murray had a front row seat to some of Saskatchewan’s most historic moments. When asked about the most notable topics, he cited his time covering the murder of JoAnn Wilson, the ex-wife of then MLA and Cabinet Minister Colin Thatcher in the early 1980’s.

“Every newspaper — literally, in the country — of consequence ... every TV station of consequence sent a reporter,” he said.

Thatcher was eventually convicted of first-degree murder in Wilson’s death.

“It was the last great thing where it was, from a journalistic standpoint, both competitive to cover and absolutely spellbinding and thrilling. So, I guess that would probably be the answer that everybody would expect to hear,” Murray said.

The columnist went on to note that while that story shaped Saskatchewan’s history, it wasn’t necessarily his career highlight.

“It’s the job itself. Its a million little things, a million little stories that you get to cover that just add up in time. It’s a cumulative business as opposed to sort of one great event,” he said.

Haters gonna hate

Murray quickly got used to the backlash that comes with being professionally opinionated. It takes more than the occasional death threat in the mail to frighten him, although he was far from oblivious to the criticism.

“We’re human, negative feedback obviously irritates the hell out of people and probably irritates journalists more than they kind of let on,” he said.

Over the years, many of his colleagues have found Murray’s handling of hate mail to be a great source of entertainment. One of his favourite methods being to highlight all of the spelling and grammar mistakes and send the mail back to the disgruntled reader.

But contrary to popular belief, the “Tin Man” does in fact have a heart — and this heart would occasionally make some days on the job more difficult than others.

“Where it kind of bothered me is when I was writing something crappy about somebody I truly liked, or truly thought was a good person or a good politician, and they just messed up or something happened where the circumstances got beyond their control,” Murray said.

He went on to say that the responsibility of his position ultimately outweighed any personal feelings, but not without tugging on his heartstrings.

“You had to write that they screwed up and you had to live with the consequences that writing about them screwing up was going to be a big part of how they became defined ... sometimes that bothered me because it appears to me there was always a sense of unfairness about it,” Murray said.

A tough old bird

People as iron-willed as Murray are hard to come by. But he has kept writing through the deaths of many loved ones (including his beloved Shawna), and the difficult emotions that followed those losses.

Throughout the seemingly never-ending chaos, journalism and the folks who dedicate their lives to it have remained the one constant in Murray’s life.

“I’m pretty grateful that I’ve been able to work with all of them,” Murray said.

While many arguments he ignited inside the walls of the Saskatchewan Legislature were legendary, they paled in comparison to the debates within the walls of his home when another four legged creature was brought home.

The stereotype of grumpy fathers falling in love with the pets they didn’t want is supported by Murray’s best friendship with a fluffy orange cat named Lola.

His desire to debate and talk about journalism extends far beyond ink on paper. It reaches his kitchen table, which is often occupied by an assortment of strays who show up for the promise of a home cooked meal – and who stay for the entertaining dinner conversation.

“I’ve always maintained, the last few years of my life, I’m working with kids that are younger, smarter and more educated than I was when I started the business. But they’re probably better technically at it than I am right now, in a lot of aspects, and they just don’t know it.”

The world keeps turning

While Murray has witnessed a lot of change in the industry, the famously pessimistic old man has some optimism for the future of journalism.

“The people that are coming along now are really good. It’s smaller, it’s more condensed. And that’s a problem” he said. “But … I look at the people I worked with at the newspaper right now ... and I can’t honestly say that I have anything to do with it, other than the fact that they’re really talented people.”

The political landscape has undoubtedly changed over the last four decades. Now, without Murray to spark the debates, it will fall to the public, to the people, to keep those conversations going.

“Your social media accounts … all you get is hits that basically reconfirm your own perspectives and biases. That’s why I think, not only is it important to question your leadership, it’s important to question all leaders,” Murray said.

“No particular political party or government is ever 100 per cent wrong on 100 per cent of the things. Sometimes some of the things that that you think they’re right about is not even in your best interest and is certainly not in the collective interests of what’s going on in the world today.”

Throughout his career, Murray’s dedication to asking the hard questions remained as unchanged as his haircut.

Now as he enters retirement, the path he has paved within the journalistic community is admired and followed by many, including the author of this article.

“Talented people just get into this business and they just grow. That’s why it continues to survive and why it’s needed, and there is some success to it. I just wish people would understand that better. I wish people understood how good these people really are,” Murray said.

I’ve been lucky enough to learn many lessons from my dad.

Watching his career has instilled a particular lesson that many journalists are already familiar with, but it’s worth sharing to anyone who will listen.

It can be scary to be disliked, but you should fear nothing more than the person you’ll become if you let the unjust words and actions of others go unchecked.