Former talk show host recalls his Radio Daze in new book
Posted December 8, 2013 8:04 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – It’s been nearly a decade since Rafe Mair had a full-time job in Vancouver radio, but it turns out he still has plenty to say about the business.
The former talk show host is telling all in a new book called Radio Daze: 25 Years of Winning Awards and Getting Fired in Canadian Radio.
In it, Mair recalls his bumpy beginnings in the broadcast booth after leaving a cabinet post in the government of Premier Bill Bennett back in 1981.
“It seemed [like] such a wonderful idea… until I got a couple of days away from the start!”
“I had no training or grounding whatsoever,” he admits.
Mair still remembers some valuable advice he received from Jack Webster, another legendary hotliner.
“He said, ‘Be yourself, Mair. Don’t try to talk like Webster or [Pat] Burns. Secondly, if you’re interviewing your mother, write Mom on a piece of paper otherwise you’ll forget her name, and thirdly, from this moment on you and I are enemies!”
Mair also spends considerable time in the book lamenting the current state of the news media.
“Nobody’s holding the government’s feet to the fire anymore and that’s sad. It’s pablum radio,” he rails.
Mair admits he’s been fired by the best of them, and in the case of former employer Jimmy Pattison, twice.
His advice to anyone working in journalism these days is to remember, no job is permanent.
“If you don’t adjust to that at the beginning, then you’re always going to be pushed around from pillar to post.”
He does insist he carries no bitterness about any of his former bosses and he feels the book reflects that.
The 81-year-old is still active, but these days in the online realm, penning columns for The Tyee, and his own website, The Common Sense Canadian.
