Shaun Newman Podcast - Ep. #122 - Dateline's Keith Morrison

Episode Date: October 14, 2020

Originally from Lloydminster AB/SK this guy is an absolute legend. He has been in journalism for 53 years now and is made famous for his role on Dateline. We discuss his early years in Canada, moving to the States and some of the events in between. What a guy. Seriously. Let me know what you think     Text me! 587-217-8500

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We got a fantastic one in store for you today. This one took, I swear, part of my life to get it done. It was probably eight months, over 30 emails of just sticking with it, just sticking with it, just sticking with it. And boom, it finally happens. But before we get to what you're all waiting for, let's get to today's episode sponsors. First off, Lloydminster Regional Health Foundation and the podcast, teaming up. again here in December to give you a Giving Tuesday Radiothon. It's a Facebook live stream from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., 12 hours straight where we talked to people from around the Lloyd area, nurses,

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I had my nieces get to finally saw it. They came in for Thanksgiving over the weekend, and I know the old Prime Minister said not to do that, but we got together as a family. It was a lot of fun, ate some turkey. And on the way there, they saw the S&P billboard. commenting on it so that is uh reading right right there for you miss diana wandler if you're heading into any of these businesses make sure you tell them that you heard about them on the podcast and if you're interested in advertising on the show visit shaw newman podcast.com top right corner hit the contact

button and send me your information maybe a little blur of what you're looking for we got lots of different options over here and we want to find something that can work for the both of us now let's get on to your t bar one tale of the tape originally from lloyd minster albertaxie Saskatchewan. Born in 1947, in 1966 he got his start in journalism at the Star Phoenix newspaper in Saskatoon. By 1973, he joined CTV's Canada AM and at age 26 was covering the Yom Kippur War. In 1989, he covered the Tiananmen Square protests and in 1995 he joined Dateline where he's been for the past 25 years. He's made appearances on Seinfeld and Bill Hader does parodies of Keith on Saturday Night Live.

He has been active for 53 years now of award-winning journalism. I'm talking about Keith Morrison. So Keith, take it away. Hello, Lloyd Minster. This is Keith Morrison, and welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Well, welcome to the Sean Newman podcast today. I'm joined by Mr. Keith Morrison, so thank you, sir, for hopping on. My pleasure.

Thank you for having me. Now, you have to solve a question for me. When COVID first hit, or maybe even a little bit before that, we got talking about notable people from Lloyd Minster. I'm from Lloyd Minster. And your name came up. And I've listened to several lots of interviews where you say you're from Saskatoon. And I've read about a thousand news articles that says you're from Lloyd Minster. So I'm putting you on the spot.

I'm making you choose. Well, I was. born the day my parents moved to Lloydminster from a little town outside, Lloydminster. Where were they? For a million or something? Anyway, they were, they moved to Lloydminster in July of the year. And I was born that very day. There was a storm, apparently.

And my dad drove my mother to the hospital while the rain and the hail were raging down. and I've got more. Interesting. I know in doing the math, I think it's 1947 when you're in there. But 1950, I hate to date you. I didn't mean to do that to you. You do it all the time. Well, 1958, you're in Saskatoon.

So it's not like you're in Lloyd for a huge chunk of time. We moved around a bit. Yeah, it's true. You come from a family of, well, you're in, United Church. Your dad was a preacher. And actually, if I'm correct, your uncles were preachers. Is that, is that true? A number of them were. Yes, indeed. Yeah. It was a preacher family. My grandfather was, that is my dad's dad. My dad was the oldest of 10 kids, and they were eight brothers. I can't remember how many exactly, but they kind of went into the ministerhood.

And there is still a, the one surviving brother still lives in Saskatoon. Really? So do you come back to Saskatoon every once in a while then? Every once in a while. I have a sister there. My little sister lives in town and her kids and her grandchildren. So I come back once in a while. See them. I almost did a story in Saskatoon last year. And we were all set up to do it and then COVID intervened. So it didn't have. Well, that's pretty much shut down the world, hasn't it? Pretty much, yeah. In the interviews of you, I've read that you talk about your father as giving you the storytelling ability

and that your mother impressed the importance of cadence. Is that what they passed along to you? Yeah, probably, or a little of both or each or something. I don't know. People ask these questions. I don't know. You answer what you think is best, but. But yes, my dad was a natural preacher.

He was a storyteller. He wasn't a bombastic guy, not at all, the reverse of that. But he was kind of spellbinding to listen to him, listen to him talk, and waited to hear what he was going to say next. And my mother was, my mother knew the rules of music as well as anybody. She was trained by the best academies. in the Toronto Conservatory, I think it was. So when she was teaching you and when she was leading the choir,

she had a very definite idea of how to express the emotions of whatever it was you were singing and the meaning of it all. And she drilled that into us all the time. But yeah, all these things contribute. Did you grow up singing then in the choir? Yes, man. it was a big part of our lives. How about, I know you went to the U of S.

I think you dropped out. Did you drop out of the U of S? You know, if a young man is walking along a cliff face and he's walking beside his professor and he winds up at the bottom of the cliff, would you think he was pushed or did he fall? Yeah, I departed the U of S after a fairly short period of time. For the best, then.

You know, probably I don't know. Who knows what turns away? Come on. Look at where you are right now. I have been, I knock on the way. I've been a very, very lucky guy. Life can go so many different directions you just never know, right? And now I would tell any kid growing up, for God's sake, go to college.

And yet you didn't. Back in the mid-60s, mid-late 60s, a lot of kids dropped out of college or flunked out or something. And many of them did okay. Many of them did very well because it wasn't such a crucial thing in those days. And I don't know that it should be not, but it is. Did you come out of school, you're not graduating. Lots of people go back to the family business. And the family business for you would have been the church.

Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I was just kind of drifting along after this. And that was not a long period of time. And by the way, you know, there's an organization in Saskatchewan called, it used to be when I was a kid called the Texas and older boys' parliament. And now it's, I don't know whether Saskatchewan Youth Parliament or something like that, it's a mock parliament. Okay. And then, again, don't know what they do now, but then every year at Christmas time, we'd have a week-long parliamentary session where we'd get together.

We'd debate whatever issues we, you know, decided to at resolutions and, you know, officials of the parliament. So that was something that I was very much involved in right around the time I was supposed to be studying for various colleges exams. And, you know, probably part of the reason I didn't do so well in my exams was because I was the premier of that parliament. And it occupied a tremendous amount of time. So I went to all the towns around Saskatchewan. We have little constituent assemblies and at our own little mini-gmy. mock parliaments on the weekends. So I was doing that kind of thing.

I had a wonderful time. I enjoyed it immensely. But I think people were beginning to wonder, is this kid ever going to do anything with himself for real? So my dad suggested that they were looking for people, having trouble finding student minister fill-ins that summer in various really tiny towns around the province to, you know, do the duties of the local United Church minister.

And I did that for that summer. And it was certainly a very interesting experience. Not a, it made me realize that that line of work is a lot more complex, difficult. And, well, stressful than I was aware it was. So you're saying, just so I hear this correctly, at one point you were seeking maybe a life in politics because you were in the schoolhouse?

Or was it just fun to do that? It was a, it was a, it was a teenage and youthful fantasy. You remember Tommy Douglas was premier and then Woodrow Lloyd and political issues were very, very front and center in Saskatchewan. The province was front and center in some of the progressive politics of the day. First Medicare program on the continent, the one that inspired the Canadian program, a very active political scene. And I think as a kid growing up, I was just,

really attracted to that. I didn't know whether I'd go into politics, but it always interested me. You know, it came close a couple of times, but nobody got there. I would have been an interesting thought, Keith Morrison, the politician. It would have been a terrible one. Going back to preaching then, or being a student minister, I should say. You talk about stress. What stress comes? Are you talking about talking in front of people, stressful?

Which I mean comes with its own terrors, I'm sure. You know, we're living in a very divisive time. And I'm, of course, southern border these days. And boy, if you think you know, divisive, come here and see what divided really is. But that's always been the case. People always have their opinions and they always vary. If you go to a small rural church on a Sunday morning and you're giving a sermon that feels like normal stuff to you because, you know, stuff that you picked up when you were, I don't know, when you were going to seminars at the university or when you're in discussions with other groups of people in Saskatoon. And you take that into a place like Disley and you talk to a bunch of guys who farm for a living.

dry land farming, very independent, very kind of, you know, rely on yourself sort of work. And you repeat some of that stuff? I mean, come on. So there was that also. And I don't know, maybe you read this story somewhere, but one of the first things that happened when I got there was one of these elderly farmers died. And I helped with the funeral and found myself. one day being the one who was there for the widow, a woman in her late 70s or early 80s, who had just lost her husband many, many, many years. And I realized that she is sort of relying

on me to be some kind of spiritual advisor to her. And, you know, I could not know what she knew and in five lifetimes. She was a very wise and lived in woman. And I said, yeah, who am I trying to kid here? I don't know what I'm doing. So, and besides, you either have to believe strenuously or don't get into the business. An interesting, interesting thought.

You know, I look at you. You know, I'm, I'm 34. And you, sir, have lived interesting, interesting life. And your career has taken you to places that most, I would argue, I don't know, what's the percent of? 99% of people have never seen, you know, just on the front line of some different events, some major events in the last. What have you been in politics in journalism last 50 years? Yeah. And so I think about it.

Well, I look at you and I, the way you talk about the older woman, not that anyone's died, but I look at you and I go, there's some wisdom to be pulled from you because you've lived and seen things that most people can't even imagine. Yeah, you know, I have. I've been very, very lucky that way, lots of experiences. And they, you know, they can make you feel exhilarated, they can make you sad, they can make you hopeful for humanity. they can make you despair.

And they have in all cases. But has it made me any wiser? I don't know. You watch it go by. And then some 20-year-old comes along and says, no, no, you got it all wrong. Here's what you have to do. And now you get it.

And it carries on. And the song and dance goes on. Yeah, yeah, truly. I, uh, visitor here. Sure. Are you okay? Yeah, I'm all good.

All right. I'm all good. Good. No, as I told Dominique, you can't, you can't, like, this is pretty cool. I'm not going to lie. This is, you know, it took Jordan Gilroy, a huge shout-out to him. He's a guy who's one of your die-hard fans. He's the one who put me on in the case that you're from Lloyd.

I had no idea. Like, I had no idea. And without him and him pushing me, I would have never started the process of seeing if I could get you to come on here. And it's been, you know, let's probably been since the start of the year, off and on 30-some emails, maybe more. And to have you sit across me, yeah. Oh, my God. It's like a huge honor. Many emails, but it's nice to talk about it.

It's, it's, everybody apologizes for it, which is cool. But honestly, it's, if all of a sudden I just. texted in and got you the first time it may have you know there's some work put into this and yeah yeah like this is this is a super super cool experience so for me sitting on this side um i've only been doing this for about a year and a half and uh been talking to different people and and digging into their stories and it's been a lot of fun it's a great thing to do yeah but it must be fascinating truly it is you get to dig into people's stories all the time. I'm sure there has to be some that just stick out immediately. Oh, there are. Yeah. Lots and lots of

them. You lose count after a while, but yes, there are some. Well, if you look back through your journey, there has to be, you know, you say you lose count, but if you look back, there has to still be one or two that maybe changed the way you thought? Well, I just this morning woke up to an email about a woman named Jennifer Dowden, who is a chemist based in California, invented, or co-invented, I guess you could say, a technology called CRISPR, gene splicing technology, which is allowing all kinds of amazing things to occur in. in health sciences all around the world. And so we did a story on her a couple of years ago,

three years ago, I think it was, when she had just got her process developed and other scientists were kind of piling on and figuring out how they can do things too. We're going after all kinds of longstanding problems thinking, maybe we can finally solve this. You know, maybe we can finally, you know, solve cystic fibrosis or figure out how to make

mosquitoes non-malarial, all kinds of problems that were being addressed. This was a big deal. Well, today I wake up to find that she's won the Nobel Prize. But I recall that as one of the truly amazing conversations that I was able to have with this woman who was just very open and accessible and talkable to, you know, she didn't, wasn't, wasn't, didn't use words I couldn't understand. And then on the other, you go to the other end, I did numbers of stories, but Jack the Lane, exercised guru. I didn't see him growing up very much because, you know, in Saskatchelan, and Boyd Minster, we didn't get, we didn't have television anyway, but if we did, we still wouldn't have seen him, I don't think. But he was very big on American

television screens and world famous. And just the coolest guy, but I did a story about him just about every birthday as he got into the 80s for Dateline. It was wonderful. It just became a really marvelous friend. So things like that. And then some things that make you really worry about the human condition a lot and stew about it. Like we followed for a number of years, there was a number of years. There was back in the 90s, I'm not sure they still have it now, a kind of an annual peace camp

in which they bring Palestinians and Israeli kids into a camp in the U.S. somewhere. And they all get together and they learn how to live with each other. And they talk about their issues and their problems. They go home with the commitment to see if they can do something to help the peace process. And they were so hopeful and they were so on board for the first few years. And we just watched them over a period of time as they gradually got hardened into their positions on either side of a very angry line. And it was one of the saddest things ever. So there's that kind of human behavior.

And then there's the other kind that makes you think, wow, we're a pretty amazing species. It's everything in the grain. With roughly 10 minutes to go, I better squeeze in a Jordan question because he'll kill me if I don't. You worked a lot of years on both sides of the border. A lot of years in Canada, a very successful career in Canada.

And then you go down south and, I mean, case in point, I mean, you've, you've, Grace Seinfeld, which might be, you know, you want to get in a device of people might argue it's the best and I'm sure that others will argue a different show but you've you know you've grace the screen of Seinfeld you've had everybody knows the Saturday night live spoofs of you in good humor I think and but what would you say was maybe the toughest thing from going from Canada to the United States?

Well you've moved around yourself a lot I know and yeah and played hockey and the States for a time. Yeah. So I went all, you know, I was a co-host with Barbara Frum of the journal on the CBC, you know, the state, old mother corporation. And she was the iconic Canadian journalist, like sort of little clouds around her head. She was so idolized, you know, and respected. And then I went from there to kind of, if it bleeds, it leads television news in Los Angeles. It was an enormous cultural change, enormous. And maybe I saw the most extreme of it. But ever since that change, it's been totally clear to me that these are two entirely different countries. The character of the people I find is completely different.

It's, Canada used to worry so much, I don't know if you're any more Canadians, but worry that somehow they were getting to be too much like America, but the blending, I'm talking about an issue from years ago. Years ago, yeah. That was the worry.

Boy, that's not something to have to worry about, I'll tell you. Well, I tell you what, uh, social media now has made every issue front line and center on your phone, which means it can get to everyone. Everybody knows about it. And yet, it hasn't become any clearer. Oh, no. It's become more confusing. Yeah. More confusing, more angry, more divisive. Yeah. And there was a guy, one of the people had met along the way who was absolutely fascinating, had several chances to talk to him over the years.

Neil Postman, I guess he was considered a sort of a technology guru that is to say a commentator on technological change. And he was most active really before the development of social media. It was the early days of computering, actually, in the 80s and in the 90s. And he wrote a book called Amusing Ourselves to Death, which was really more about television. But he used to say that for every positive thing we get from a new technology, we get a negative thing, which is equal and opposite. And the cumulative effect of it is that, yes, we invent these technologies, but we don't use the technologies. They use us. We become creatures of our tools.

So, you know, that iPhone or whatever this, whatever kind of phone you use, you find indispensable, you think that's my tool to operate in the world. But really, that tool is making you a different kind of creature than you were before you got it. And it's making you do all kinds of different things. Now, some of them are very positive, like to show you're doing right now. some of them are what you've already described, that it's making people more confusing, that it's driving people apart. So,

but the technology itself is what's causing this. We're not doing it ourselves. I mean, we are doing it, but we're doing it because of the technology. Yeah, if you're removed the technology. Yeah, I don't know. I think we're basically, I think what he was saying,

you kind of see these days, is that we're sort of helpless to this technology. It comes along and it changes this. That's it. Well, that's bang on. That's extremely pertinent to what's going on right now. I mean, like, I'd read an interesting story about you, just where you were at the time of the O.J. Simpson back in 1994

in the helicopter and everything else. I was wondering if you could share that story with my listeners. Well, are you talking about the car, the slow car chase? Yes. Yeah. I had actually just left. I was doing Canada at that point.

I left Los Angeles, moved back to Toronto. You were in Toronto at that time? Yes, I'd moved back to do Canada. I'd move back to do Canada. Canada. Yeah. And, but I was. very fresh from Los Angeles.

And I'm looking at this thing. And I know that all the people involved who are doing this coverage. I know the guy in the helicopter. I know the people on the ground. I know that what the attitude of the people in the newsroom would be. And that's a technological story

because it would not have been possible to cover that story, the way it was covered had it not been for the technological events in the cameras that are put on the bottoms of helicopter. the ability of those helicopters to hover at a certain distance. The fact that television had changed, just the economics of television had changed because of technological change to the point where you could go on the air and be on the air

for an hour, an hour and a half, two hours, it didn't matter what, because it was a dramatic thing, you didn't have to break away. Before that, you had, you know, every day. day there'd be a newscast and there'd be a two minute or a minute and a half story in the middle of the news about something big that happened that day. Because they didn't have the technological ability or the commercial availability to make it go along. You had to do it. The beginning of that new era was the O.J. Simpson's slow car chase. Do you remember seeing that and just being like, what is going on?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yes, absolutely. And then after, of course, they didn't want to do anything but car chases down the freeway. Until everybody got bored with it. Well, we're slowly closing in on time here. So I want to, I do a little segment at the end. It's usually the crude master final five. We'll see how many we get out before time spits us out. Okay.

All right. Sure. They're nice and quick, long as you want to go. As long as Dominique doesn't shut us. down, I think we're fine. All right, fine. You've got, you've had the opportunity to sit down and, um, and go places and talk to people.

Who's, who's one person you, you would like to sit down like this and pick their brain? Oh my. I have to choose. You chose multiple if you like. I like people who, who, I like to talk to people who really think deeply about things and who, Maybe, you know, aren't even thinking about current events or aren't a not necessarily, certainly probably not a politician. You're never going to get a very honest, deep conversation from a politician because they're all worried about what they get, about, you know, what they say and how people perceive it. But I, you know, people who are interested in deeper philosophical issues.

But, you know, I'm not going to pick any of it in particular. in the beginning when you did interviews all over the place who was the one interviewee who made you a little nervous Pierre Trudeau without a doubt he scared me after death what I interviewed him and I think I blew the interview pretty badly I didn't I interviewed him several times but I'm thinking of one in particular because it was just nervous. And my wife had worked with him, and she happened to come along that day.

They hadn't seen each other for years. And when I did this interview, it was after he retired. And so she came and sat in the back of the room. And he walked in, saw her there, saw me there sitting ready to do the interview. And he got this grin on his face, and he came in and he sat down, turned around, looked. at her, you know, May pleasantry said hello. And the look on his face

as he turned to look at me again was, I'm going to eat you alive, boy, just to show off to your wife. And it was quite an interview. Speaking of your wife, I read a news clipping that said, the first time you ever saw

was on a video clip and you kept replaying it. Yeah, it's true. So you do, so Mr. Keith Morrison believes in love at first sight then? Yes, in fact, I mean, if you get super, if you're very lucky, and, you know, luck comes with its complications. You know, nothing is ever easier or unruffled by side issues. But yes, I totally do. I mean, if you know, you know.

I would say probably nothing in life should be that easy. It's always better when you've got to work for it. Yeah, well, that's true. Your final one, Seneca once said, time discovers truth. As we said in the beginning, you've been reporting for over 50 years, 53. What's the truth you've discovered? We all died in the end. Or as my grandfather used to say, there'll be money when we're all dead.

Don't worry about it. Well, I really appreciate you making some time today for me. This has been, well, something off the bucket list for me. So I appreciate you making some time. I'm delighted to have talked to you, thank you. You asked good questions. Thank you. Hey, folks, thanks again for joining us today.

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