Canadian journalist Lloyd Robertson, who covered everything from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the 9/11 terrorist attacks during 35 years as chief anchor of CTV National News, has died. He was 92.
According to his family, the veteran broadcaster died on Tuesday evening.
Robertson’s more than six-decade broadcasting career began in 1952 at a local radio station in his hometown, Stratford, Ont. Robertson made his national television debut in 1956 with the CBC, where he rose to prominence before moving to CTV National News in 1976. When Robertson’s CTV News co-anchor retired in 1984, Robertson took the helm of the nightly news show, which he led as chief anchor and senior news editor until 2011.
“For me, it’s been a rare privilege to have been able to serve in this position for so long. It’s been a front-row seat to history,” Robertson said in 2011 during his final broadcast as CTV National News anchor. “Most of all it’s been fascinating to watch our country grow in confidence and stature.”
Robertson on his most memorable stories
In a 2018 interview with CTV News film critic Richard Crouse, Robertson credited his father for giving him the news bug.
“My father used to talk about current affairs all the time: he was very interested in politics, as I turned out to be,” Robertson said. “He would make the people real for me and I could identify with them.”
Speaking to Crouse, Robertson cited the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks as the most “remarkable” event he covered in his storied career.
“I remember thinking at the time, this is something that we have never seen before in my time and covering North American news,” Robertson recalled, after describing rushing into the studio that day. “This one was really big because it changed the way people lived. The next thing we knew… security became very important in our lives to an extent that it really hadn’t been before.”
Other memorable events included covering Neil Armstrong’s first footsteps on the moon in 1969 and Terry Fox’s inspiring attempt to run across Canada in 1980.
The hardest story to tell, Robertson added, was writing about his mother’s mental health struggles in his 2013 memoir “The Kind of Life It’s Been.”
“She had a very, very difficult time with what we would now call bipolar, OCD, paranoia, all sorts of things,” Robertson explained. “They eventually performed a prefrontal lobotomy, and growing up with that as a young boy, it was a pretty difficult time.”
In a 2017 CTV News Channel appearance, Robertson reflected on the changes Canada has undergone since 1967, when he covered the country’s centenary celebrations.
“It was really ‘67 that made (Canada Day) into a national celebration,” Robertson said in the lead-up to Canada 150 celebrations. “It was really a coming of age for Canada in 1967. I’ve never seen birthday party like it before or since.”
In 2018, Robertson even reported live from a multi-vehicle collision on Toronto’s Don Valley Parkway. Uninjured after being hit and spinning out of control, Robertson seized the opportunity to cover the accident when television crews arrived on the scene.
“It’s a pretty bad accident as accidents go,” Robertson said while holding a CP24 microphone. “Wow. I’m still standing.”
To Robertson, the 1963 assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy made him truly appreciate the power of the then-burgeoning television news industry.
“What the Kennedy assassination did for all broadcasters who had a part in it, however small, was make us realize that we could be a part of stories bigger than ourselves and paint the world for people,” Robertson said in a 2011 documentary. “I felt that I was now involved in something that really mattered to me.”
Rising through the ranks
Robertson’s broadcasting career began in 1952 at a local radio station in Stratford, Ont.
“I always had a fascination with radio because radio would transport me into a world of the imagination,” Robertson said in a 2012 interview. “You had that sense that this was a huge world that you could inhabit, which was much brighter and better than the world you lived in every day.”
In 1954, he became a staff announcer with CBC television, working in Winnipeg and then Ottawa before moving to Toronto.
“When I left, I remember thinking, I’m never going to see this building again,” Robertson said of his initial CBC audition in a 2011 documentary about his career. “From the time I started in television at the CBC in Winnipeg, I began to think that where I wanted to go was the pinnacle of Canadian broadcasting in this country, which would mean, for English Canada, going to Toronto.”
Climbing through the ranks at the CBC, Robertson would go on to prominently anchor The National news show between 1970 to 1976. Union rules at the time, however, prevented CBC news readers from writing and editing broadcast copy, which became a source of frustration for Robertson.
A 1976 job offer from CTV promised the kind of editorial input Robertson had long been seeking, and after 22 years at CBC, Robertson made the decision to become co-anchor of CTV National News, a position he held until 1984 when fellow co-anchor Harvey Kirck retired.
“In 1984, to me, it was the equivalent of being knighted,” Robertson reminisced. “I was made senior editor of the newscast.”
As one of the longest-serving news anchors in television history, Robertson’s deep reassuring voice became familiar to generations of Canadians as he covered everything from royal weddings to wars to natural disasters.
After handing the reins of CTV National News to Lisa LaFlamme in 2011, Robertson co-hosted CTV investigative and current affairs show W5 until 2016 and remained a frequent commentator on CTV News Channel.
“For a kid from Stratford, Ont. who didn’t have a lot of formal education, never went beyond high school, and here I am in this job which puts me right here on the cusp of history and I’m able to experience all of this… there is not a better job in the world,” Robertson reflected in 2011.
‘The end of an era’
When Robertson signed off from CTV National News in 2011, then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper called it “the end of an era.”
“You’ve been delivering the news since I was barely more than a boy,” Harper said at the time. “You’ve been doing it for so long and so authoritatively, you’ve almost become a part of Canada’s geography, and I know that Canadians from coast to coast are going to miss you.”
Bob Rae – then-interim Liberal leader – previously said the best word to describe Robertson is “integrity.”
“His word is everything,” Rae said in 2011. “He is authenticity, he is authority, he’s a good humoured guy, he’s a great Canadian, he’s a great broadcaster, and dare I say it, he’s a good friend.”
Friend and former CTV News colleague Craig Oliver credited Robertson with helping grow the network’s audience.
“What Lloyd did is gave us instant credibility,” Oliver previously said. “Our numbers began to climb and we’ve never retreated really. That’s Lloyd’s legacy. He took this news department and put it on the map.”
Robertson has received numerous recognitions throughout his celebrated career, including the Order of Canada in 1998, an honorary Doctor of Laws from B.C.’s Royal Roads University in 2006, and a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame in 2007. A park is named after him in Markham while hometown Stratford previously declared Sept. 1 “Lloyd Robertson Day.” Robertson has also revealed that both the Liberals and Conservatives failed to woo him into a life of politics, and that he even rejected an offer of a Senate seat.
Married in 1956 to high school sweetheart Nancy, Robertson had four daughters and seven grandchildren.
Like many great news anchors, Robertson had a signature sign-off at the end of each broadcast: “And that’s the kind of day it’s been.”
“I will miss coming in every day, I will miss seeing my friends,” Robertson said during his last show as CTV National News anchor. “I will miss that wonderful process of being able to sit down, sift through the material having heard what’s on the go that day and then make decisions about how we’re going to shape it for our Canadian audience, what’s of interest, what’s of importance to them.”
