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Former CBC anchor Earl Cameron dies
Last Updated Fri, 14 Jan 2005 12:16:24 EST

TORONTO - Veteran CBC news anchor Earl Cameron died in a hospital in Barrie, Ont., Thursday, following a lengthy illness. He was 89.

Cameron was host of CBC's national television news from 1959 to 1966. He joined CBC Manitoba in 1944 and was quickly transferred to Toronto, where he captured the prized post of reading the national radio news five nights a week.

Born in Moose Jaw, Sask., in June 1915, the man who came to be known as "Mr. CBC News" started out as a teacher, following in the footsteps of three of his siblings.

Life as an educator wasn't for Cameron, however, and he moved through a variety of jobs before netting a summer relief gig at a Moose Jaw radio station in 1939. He went on to become chief announcer and within five years was working for the CBC.

Cameron was an announcer trained in the British tradition, authoritative, calm, unflappable, avoiding emotion, never editorializing. Once, when the studio lights failed during a radio newscast, he reportedly flipped open a cigarette lighter and read on, with the broadcast delayed by just a few seconds.

He remained one of the country's top radio news presenters throughout the 1950s and, in 1959, won the job of reading the nightly 11 o'clock news on CBC-TV, helping the broadcast become Canada's most reliable source of evening news.

As the 1960s progressed, however, his impersonal delivery appeared increasingly outdated. New blood entering the CBC frowned upon the fact that he was a newsreader and not a journalist. Also at issue was his participation in the activity then common among announcers of recording voiceovers for commercials for extra cash.

In 1966, the CBC replaced him with journalist Stanley Burke. Cameron was made host of Viewpoint, a five-minute program following The National that shared opinions on public issues. He retired in 1976, after 32 years with the CBC.

Cameron's influence was such that he was parodied by comedian Eugene Levy, who created a newsman character on SCTV named Earl Camembert.

A funeral is scheduled for Saturday at St. Peter's Anglican Church in Churchill, Ont.

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