The second in the series “Our Collingwood”, is will local radio personality Mariane McLeod.
“Mariane is a bred-in-the-bone local, with deep roots in Clearview township, Collingwood and Wasaga Beach, who spent nearly ten years in Toronto as a reporter, writer and news anchor. She returned to the area to marry her high school sweetheart just in time to become part of the 97.7 The Beach family” (Bayshore Brioadcasting)
1. Give me a brief summary of your family, and what brought you to Collingwood.
Well, I’m from here. My grandfather’s father on my father’s side came from Scotland in the 1800s to what was then Nottawasaga Township. My Dad was born in the house where I grew up. I went to elementary school in Creemore, took piano lessons in Stayner, went to skating school in Wasaga Beach and rode the bus to high school at CCI. I still have my prefect sweater, and I’m OK if you think that makes me a loser. After high school, I went to university and then college and worked at two little newsrooms before going to 680News in Toronto for nearly nine years. I moved ‘home’ in 2003.
2. Describe your “sweetie.” Tell us how you two met.
Sweetie is the best smelling, funniest, most thoughtful man I have ever known. His mother is an angel. Don’t tell him this, but seeing him across the room can still sometimes make my knees a little bit weak. He was friends with my brothers, but they had never mentioned they had a sister until he came to the farm one summer night for a field party. I was in high school and Sweetie was in college. We started ‘going out’ a few months later, and were together until somewhere near the end of my first year of university, when I suddenly thought I was far too cool to stay with the boy I had met in high school. It took us a decade to find our way back to each other, but we did. It’s a long story, but quite dramatic and romantic. In retrospect, I wish it had been far less dramatic.
3. Now tell me about your 4 legged sweetie.
Ah, Emma. She’s the dog who has become the light and love of our lives. She’s a Weimaraner, which means she’s a snuggler who can run like the wind. She makes me laugh every single day.
4. How did you get your start in radio?
The summer of 1988, a friend of mine who had been helping out another friend at CKCB (…dominant news voice of Simcoe County!), told me they needed someone to fill in on weekends for the rest of the summer. I was very interested in news, in storytelling, but I wasn’t sure whether I would explore newspaper, TV or magazines. That summer, I simply fell in love with radio as a medium, and in spite of the terrible hours and generally low wages, I have stuck with it. Funny, both of those guys are in education now, rather than broadcasting.
5. Who have been your influences, and your mentors as a broadcaster?
You know, I don’t think of myself as a broadcaster. I think of myself as newsie, but I guess now that I do more than just the news, I am a broadcaster after all. I was a huge fan of Barbara Frum. She always seemed to ask the question I was just about to ask. I wish I’d met her. It was a scholarship named after her that I won in college. (That was shameless bragging, I know. I also won best buttertart at the GNE one year.)
I wish I’d had a mentor. I’ve kind of muddled along, making my own mistakes, some of them doozies. It would have been good to have a guide of some sort, perhaps to thwart my tendency toward shameless bragging.
6. You a have blog “mcleodsmusings.” What is it about?
I really want to make a joke referencing the previous question. That would be classic comic technique. However, my blog is not about shameless bragging. Well, it’s not ONLY about shameless bragging. It’s really about whatever I’m thinking about when I feel the need to write. It’s about what I notice, and what bugs me and what impresses me. I will give a review of a book I’ve recently read, and the next day, tell an anecdote about my father. The day after that, I will weigh in on something in local politics. The whole thing is very self-indulgent and I have a great time with it. I have no axes to grind or soapboxes to stand upon, at least, I don’t think so. One of my girlfriends lost a friend because of a blog I wrote, which makes me sad, but other friends ask when they’re going to be the subject of a post, so at least someone’s reading it other than my mom.
7. You recently ended a contract to do this blog. How did that come about?
I didn’t even consider blogging until I was approached by a company in Collingwood and asked to contribute content to their website. The contract ended a few months ago, but they said I could keep the blog site. At the time, I wondered whether I would continue with it when I was no longer part of their site. I have, much to my surprise.
8. Describe your responsibilities with 97.7?
I’m the morning newscaster, morning show co-host and I produce and host a one-hour local-focused talk show each morning along with a one-hour weekend review that runs on Saturdays. My alarm clock goes off at 4:03, and I’m usually at my desk, scanning the day’s news and waiting for the kettle to boil, by 4:20. That may seem early, but the year I was on the morning run at 680, I had to be at my desk at 3:15. Yes, in the morning.
My work day is busy. Happily, it’s also fun. The ‘hard news’ part of my day appeals to me just as much as the lighter stuff and the feature pieces, which I wouldn’t have thought when I agreed to take on all three jobs. Bayshore Broadcasting has several other stations and we share resources, which makes doing all three things a lot easier than it would be were I on my own. I also have a brilliant reporter who is eager to produce these marvellous feature pieces each week, but I don’t want to brag on her too much for fear she’ll be snapped up by the CBC.
9. Describe your on air partner?
Rod West makes me laugh every day. He’s the fifth guy I’ve shared on-air duties with since the station went to air in 2007. I’ve liked them all, in different ways, because they were all so different. Rod sometimes will hit a wrong button, but he never fails to keep me laughing.
10. What has been your funniest on air blunder?
It wasn’t actually mine. When I was working in Toronto, we had just gotten a new computer program and one of our sports announcers screwed up a tennis player’s name, cursed repeatedly and then re-started his recording. At least, he THOUGHT he has started recording. What he had actually done was create an additional recording, and the sweary one is what went to air. I will never forget coming out of the announce booth, “Peter! You just said f^%! On AIR! A LOT” “Nooooo!” ”YESSSS, yes you did!!” “NOOOO!” “Yesss!” “F%$! Really? Dammit!” It was early days of 680News, so we didn’t have all that many listeners, and got only one call of complaint, funny enough.
11. What is your favourite topic of discussion on air?
If I’m not speaking at work, I’m reading, reading, reading, and gathering facts and opinions on everything I can get my eyeballs on. When I’m done with the local sources, I move on to the national stuff and then international. I like to think I can talk about pretty much anything for about 30 seconds, and come up with a quick joke. I do love the moron criminal stories provided by the local cops after a long weekend. I also like the ‘duh’ research that sometimes comes out. Like, “New research confirms chicken soup can make you feel better when you’re sick.” Really? Duh. Mostly, though, I like the back-and-forth with my on-air husband. There’s something magical about the split second when I feel a funny line bubbling up.
12. Favourite and least favourite music genre.
I have three playlists through which I rotate when I’m out for a run: swing, classical/orchestral and electronica. I would like to be someone who likes opera, but I’m just not. It’s a very good thing I’m not the one who picks the music at the radio station, since you’d have Mozart right next to Madonna, followed by St. Germain and Johnny Favourite. That would not be pretty to anyone but me.
13. Comedians used to say that George W. Bush, was the best thing that happened to comedy. Over the years, personality has been your G.W. and why?
I don’t have one in particular, but I will say that it’s the hypocrites that make me laugh, especially the ones who are caught when they genuinely thought they could get away with things that are completely outrageous. Bill Clinton was my favourite for the longest time, but I think Toronto city hall may have -ahem- cracked his mantle.
14. In your years on the radio, have you ever been asked to read, or axe a story, by a local politician, for his or her own political agenda? If so, how did you handle it?
I haven’t been asked by a politician, but I was certainly chewed out by one for an interview that I had done with one of their colleagues. This person came by my office and told me how disgusted they were with me for having talked to this other person, especially because of how my mother felt on the issue being discussed! I was shocked to imagine anyone thinking that a fellow grown-up and a journalist would refrain from interviewing a particular person because their mother didn’t agree with the interviewee’s opinions. Furthermore, most people who have met me are soon aware that I make up my own mind, my strong-willed mother notwithstanding. Once the shock of the confrontation wore off, I managed to laugh about it. Once. I cringed a little, too.
15. Collingwood has two papers and the local radio stations. Describe your working relationship with other members of the local media?
I’m sad to report I almost never see them, except for Ian Adams, who is a guest on my talk show each Tuesday morning. Every Christmas, a few of us are game to try a get-together, but it never seems to happen, or at least, I can never make it. I wish we had some sort of regular gathering, if for no other reason, to justify the complaints of the people who say “we” in the media are part of some sort of vast conspiracy.
16. You had some problems with something you reported on air a few years ago. What can you tell me about that?
I was threatened with a lawsuit over a story I published and broadcast about a lawsuit ongoing at the time involving Paul Bonwick and John DiPoce. The threat against me was settled out of court with no monetary repercussions except for lawyers’ fees. I stopped following the Bonwick/DiPoce story at the request of one of my superiors, who is no longer with the company. Go ahead, call me a chicken. I’ve made my peace with it.
17. Several local bloggers, including myself, have popped up over the last several months. What is your opinion on the local blogasphere, and what advise would you give to those of us who are blogging?
My opinion is, the more opinions, the better, as long as they’re informed opinions and not just angry rants. That said, sometimes angry ranters can make a point worth hearing. I also think it’s important for those who offer up their opinions to have done some solid thinking about where their opinions might have come from, and to have taken some time to think about why someone else might come to a different conclusion, and not just because perhaps that other person is stupid.
It’s easy to seek out stories and writers that confirm what we think we already know, but I think that’s a lazy way which leads to division and stagnation. If we all read writers and bloggers with whom we disagree (and not just to leave what we think are witty bits of snark in the comment section), we might just find a way to look at things differently and, well, grow.
I was so disappointed when I was told recently by a town councillor that he refuses to read the blogs, since, he said, they’re full of crap. I thought, “You would have a conversation with a person who disagrees with you if they were across the table from you, why disregard what someone has to say simply because it’s online?” That said, this same councillor could tell me what was written in the blogs he detested so much, which makes me wonder whether he really does read them after all. Perhaps he had been briefed on what was being written. Neither scenario is a confidence-inducer, is it?
As for advice, my advice to my fellow bloggers is more of a plea: Please use spellcheck more effectively and please, please stop your horrific abuses of the apostrophe! I may sound like I’m from a one-room schoolhouse here, especially in these days of texting etc., but since you’re putting your ideas out there into the world, why not give them a proper send-off? Crappy spelling, syntax and grammar make you seem like an idiot and will turn people away from your fabulous insights.
18. What are you opinions on the CBC story that came out in March, about “Corruption in Collingwood?
You mean about the possibility thereof, right? I was not surprised in the least. Everywhere I went last fall, people were talking about links and connections and what they saw as somehow things at town hall being ‘just not right’. However, hunches and coffee-shop complaints aren’t news. At least, they haven’t always been. I was told of the investigation a few weeks prior to the big story breaking, but I didn’t go to air with it since the OPP would not confirm any complaints had been made or that any investigation was underway. I don’t have the resources to follow up like the CBC did, and didn’t feel I could go to air with what little I had.
19. 6 people have been interviewed by the OPP in their current investigation. Do you believe that at the end of the investigation, any charges will be laid?
What I hope is that if there’s something to be found, it will be found. If there has been cheating or gaming the system or naughtiness in any way or undue influence, I hope whoever gained from it has been dumb enough to leave a good enough trail so we can be done with this.
If there is nothing actionable to be found, I sure hope that comes out, too.
20. Give me a shameless plug.
For you? Sure: I have met you in person just one time, Steve, and when I got home that day, I told my Sweetie, “I just met the most dangerous man in Collingwood. He’s deeply curious, he’s willing to do the work and he has nothing to lose. There will be interesting days ahead.”
For me? OK, imagine me saying the following in a big, Rodney Radio type voice. Add some reverb if you want: “I’m just a local girl trying to keep you informed and entertained on the radio. If you have trouble tuning us in at 97.7 FM, get us online at 977thebeach.ca or through our app on iTunes. You can read my blog through the station’s website or bookmark it at mcleodsmusingswithmarianemcleod.blogspot.ca”
Many thanks to Mariane, for sharing her thoughts with us.
Cheers
Steve
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