Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Lorne Honickman: Toronto Mike'd #503

Episode Date: August 30, 2019

Mike chats with Lorne Honickman about his years at CityTV, CP24 and 640. There's also a frank discussion about what ails news today.

Welcome to episode 503 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Propertyinthe6.com, Palma Pasta, StickerU.com, and Capadia LLP CPAs. and Capadia LLP CPAs. I'm Mike from torontomike.com and my guest this week is lawyer slash journalist Lorne Honickman. Welcome, Lorne. Nice to be here, Mike.

Nice to be number 503. But as I told you, that's my favorite number 503 so I saved it I saved it for you thank you so much let me first say

I'm disappointed there's no mustache on that face yeah and how many times do people talk about that mustache and how many times

do I have to see pictures of myself or when somebody calls and says hey somebody just posted one of your stories from 1983 what a mustache and some guy in London, Ontario who posts my mustache when somebody calls and says, hey, somebody just posted one of your stories from 1983.

What a mustache. And some guy in London, Ontario who posts my mustache. So I thought to myself, Mike, look at that. There's the phone and I'll hang it up right now. Why? Peter Gross didn't. Yeah. We'll get to that. We'll get to that.

But one of the things, and we'll get my mustache out of the way, is when I saw Will Ferrell and Ron Burgundy in that Anchorman, the very first time I saw that, I went, you know what? I think they were scouring the internet, and they said, let's see,

what did the reporter slash anchor look like from the 1980s? Oh, look at that dude. He's got a mullet. Maybe we'll do that now, of course. I could be rich right now if that was true, but yeah, no mustache. I'm trying to think. I've been disappointed before, though. For example, Gino Retta. Yes.

Are you familiar with Gino Retta? I remember Gino. Yes, yes. He came over and there was no mustache. I almost kicked him out. I said, get the hell out of here and don't come back until you grow back the mustache. But I was pleased. Jim Van Horn still has a mustache. It's white now, but it's still. Yeah, mine would be pretty white now. Which would work for you.

But yeah, so no mustache, but at least you're here. And it's an honor to have you because I grew up watching City TV and my news source, well, for all my formative years was City Pulse. I thought it was the coolest news on Toronto television. Well, it was. It was also, I'd like to think, the best news as well. We can get into this later about news then and news now, but I was very lucky. At the time that I was able to get in uh there was already an iconic group of people i got in in mid-81 uh gourd martineau was already there dini petty was there

colin vaughn had been there a few years the late great mark daly had had started there a couple of years um so it was i was very lucky to become part of that group. And of course, I mean, we'll get into it. Oh yeah, we'll get into it for sure. You kidding me? But certainly it was, and for me it was, when you think back, I told you this before, before we went on the air,

trying to think back and say, okay, oh wow, he wants to talk about my life. And you don't really, unless you're sitting down and you're going, okay, I'm going to do a memoir right now. You don't start thinking about it. But it was, it was, it was lucky for me to get into it. I never, I never was growing up saying to myself, I'm going to be a TV reporter at this real cool You never, you never like grew up with like the hairbrush as a microphone in front of the mirror, like pretending. I'll tell you what I wanted to do. Here was my dream, Mike.

My dream was I was going to be the play-by-play announcer for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Oh, yeah. That's what I wanted to do. So there was a team in Toronto way back when in the WHA called the Toronto Toros. Right. And I don't know if you remember that.

And I would go in in and you never had to worry at Maple Leaf Gardens because it wasn't sold out so I would go sit in the greens and everybody back can remember where the greens were not where the grays were the grays were the worst right and then greens greens so nobody was at the grays nobody was in the grades I'd sit there with a tape recorder and do the play-by- play wow and and um and sometimes you know i have friends they'd be my color analysts or i do it myself and back in the in 74 um there was uh toronto tours were trying to sell season tickets and so i went and saw these guys i'll never forget their names rick warwick um and or joe warwick and so his name. You said you never forget his name.

But it's Joe Warwick. These guys. And I showed them the tapes. And so I started selling season tickets for them. Knock door to door and go to the different business sections and see if you could sell. And then they sort of got a kick out of what I was doing. And they gave me a press pass.

And I got to sit in the press box box do my play-by-play and then yes they let me sit in the gondola gondola right the foster hewitt uh well now that's called the foster hewitt gondola it's the gondola maple leaf guard so i got my cassette tape recorder i'd bring friends they'd be the color commentators and the toros would sometimes use the tapes or whatever and that's what i thought i i wanted to do and uh wow uh in case in case you haven't heard i didn't i didn't do it lauren you missed that target but but i mean you did end up uh speaking into a microphone but so we'll get to that but uh that's amazing and i'm trying to the toros when did they leave i think they left by 76 i remember doing play by play of the playoffs against san diego i'll always remember that 76 uh the toros lost and i think they were

out of town after that oh the uh was it did harold ballard play a role in their demise i there's some story there probably right there was There was some sort of, you know, I think the rent was way off board and they never really got sold out crowds. So I don't think they really made any money back then. Right. They didn't have to worry about my salary. I was doing it for a very good price for them.

That's right. Free. That's right. You were doing it for the press pass. Now, you're not a labor lawyer, are you? No. Okay. I only ask that because... Do you need some advice right now?

No, but some Sportsnet personalities could use some assistance. Oh, I'm sure they do. I'm sure those guys hopefully have... What's the expression? Lawyered up? Is that what they say on TV? Yeah, I'm sure they do. And everybody who is involved in any type of termination. Right. Hopefully they get some legal advice. So we got like a trifecta of announcements the other day.

So we learned Nick Kiprios was gone. He's been there, well, he's a former Maple Leaf, as you know, but he's been at Sportsnet for over 20 years. Well, since the, he's a day one-er at Sportsnet. I just talked to Hebsey about this cause Hebsey came like in 2000 and Kiprios was already there. So Kiprios was there for over 20 years gone. John Shannon. Uh, he's no longer at Sportsnet and, uh, Doug McLean no longer at Sportsnet. We already know about guys like Scott Morrison, who I'll just

let people know is, uh, booked for Toronto Mike. So he's coming in and it'll be great to talk to Scotty Morrison. Bob McCowan, of course, is the big name that was let go this summer. So definite cost-cutting efforts by Rogers Overhead Sports. I guess, you know, and I've lost obviously track of what's going on behind the scenes in the media,

but media is changing. And it's uh obviously uh big organizations make big decisions and sometimes it's it's easy to speculate as to why but hopefully all those people will land on their feet somewhere all great talents and another name that'll come up who's a great talent uh who worked for uh well of course your your old station city tv is now rogers property but uh a few years ago uh gordon martineau was a victim of similar circumstances so yeah and what how many how many years was he what just a mere 40 was it was it depends my friend if you count his uh whatever he had several weeks or whatever at global do you remember that it depends i do remember i and i wasn't at Global. Do you remember? It depends if you...

I do remember. Now, I wasn't at City yet, but I remember he went to Global. He was there for, what, an hour or something? Yeah, with who the mother... Oh, the... Yeah. Who's mother? Who's on...

Matthew Perry's mom. Suzanne. Suzanne Perry. Right, Suzanne Perry. Right, I remember that. And I, of course... And, you know, that's who I watched, right? For me to even think of City TV and City Pulse,

it was because I was a viewer of City Pulse in the early days when I watched Gord and Deanie and those, and it was because of that I watched them and I went, I think I could do that. I have no experience, but I think I can do that. And that was my first impetus to pick up the phone and call a guy by the name of Gord Haynes, who at the time was the news director at City TV. And lucky for me, he was the type of guy who took the call. He listens to this guy on the air,

on the phone. I'm full of, what's the expression piss and vinegar right I can do this I think I can and he asked me have I worked anywhere and I went uh yeah I've worked I worked at legal aid I worked I I was I was an application officer at legal aid I graduated from U of T and worked at legal aid and I I did this and I did that he goes well have you done any media and I thought do I tell him about sitting in the greens you you know, doing the Toronto tour? I said, well, no. He goes, well, most people work up in like Nooka Canooka, Saskatchewan, right?

And I'm like, I don't want to do that. I got a pretty good job. But lucky me, Mike, lucky me, he didn't mind me calling all the time. And I would call, and unlike now, of course, and there's a million unlike nows, but one of the first unlike nows was no email. So it wasn't like I could keep in contact with him. The only way I kept in contact with him was call.

And the switchboard, you had to call switchboard, Gord Haynes, please. They put me upstairs. It would go to his assistant. Hi, it's Lorne Honigman. Is Gord in? never said to me once uh no he's really busy lauren uh hang on one second and then this guy'd come on gordon's i go oh hi gordon lauren honickman oh hi lauren how you doing the good old days hey you know and it would no sorry no no i you know don't anything. No, but thank you very much.

And what I had done is I had met a former cameraman from City. His name was Gary Holoff. And I met him because at that time he was either married or about to be married to an old high school friend of mine. And he was a City cameraman. And he said to me, oh, you know what you got to do, Lorne? You got to put together a demo story. Right. So I had never

been in front of a camera never did that and gary on his own time on his own time got me shot me we did a story i did a story on because i was working for legal aid and that was really my first inroads into anything legal um i did a story on how to represent yourself in highway traffic court and i arranged so i could go in there and do some stand up so he shot the story he got me a guy by the name of al mcpherson who was a cameraman at city who could cut they edited the story together they put it all together mike it was garbage it was it was i want to see this no i think i can find it it was about it was about as garbage as garbage can be and i and i took it and it was my only thing that i had and i sent it to gourd haynes not surprisingly he didn't say we got to get this guy immediately

but i had a story i had at least one story right now um what i wasn't doing because i had no idea i had to do this back then is i was making no contact with moses neimer i just was contacting the guy that i heard ran the newsroom right i had nothing i didn't understand that really what i should have been doing back then, or maybe not, maybe I wouldn't be sitting beside you right now if I had made contact at first with Moses, but it was Gord Haynes. And after literally eight months, and this is like, you know, like you can't write these stories. After eight months, I'm making the calls. Gord's taking them on a weekly basis or bi-weekly basis. He's not blowing me off at all. He says to me on the phone out of nowhere, can you come in and start on

Monday? And I said, what do you mean? And he said, well, here's what we're going to do, Lorne. We're going to do a three-month experiment. It'll be like a probationary experiment. You'll come in, you'll watch what we do, you'll go on the air. It'll be like a probationary experiment. You'll come in. You'll watch what we do. You'll go on the air. If you make it, you make it. And if you don't, you don't. We'll pay you 50 bucks a day.

And I said, yeah, I'm going to do it. 100% I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. And later on, I found, and I wish I kept it, I found a posting, a piece of, like, a memo that went on, you remember memos used to go on the wall, right? And there was a memo, welcome Lorne Honigman, and he used the words, three-month experiment, etc., etc. So I got in there, and I met the people, not only, obviously, who we're talking about, and this is all at the old place, 99 Queen Street East, the fifth floor newsroom.

You got off this elevator that had one of the metal bars that came off, and I'll always remember going in there, this tiny place, the newsroom. And I'm seeing all these faces that I watched because I thought, yeah, I think I can do this. And I, of course, had absolutely no idea what was going to happen or what I was going to do. But everybody around me sort of looked like, okay, who's this guy? He's here. And I got there, I used to, I'd get in at maybe 8.30 in the morning. And in those days, six o'clock news, Martineau and Deanie Petty, 10 o'clock news bill cameron that was it no weekend news of course

weekend news was still years away um and i'd get in in the morning and i'd leave at maybe you know 11 o'clock at night after the 10 o'clock news wow they send me out i do stories come back people would help me and i had cameraman who would who would do things for me. Two of them that today are in my mind and in my heart and they're still friends with. Bill Atanasoff, who we can talk about later. We will. And who got hit by a car and is a quadriplegic now and blind. And back in 2010, one of my first cameramen.

And Al McCormick, still probably one of my closest friends that I have who lives now out in PEI. Those guys and other people and editors, they got me through it. But it was the type of thing that you go out, you do things. There were other people. I'll write some other names that were very helpful to me that you may remember i love these names this is my favorite part barbara

laskin who was who was a reporter uh back then kevin evans uh a reporter back then those two people peter silverman i think had just started buddy watch it buddy uh peter silverman had just started when i started there and of course jojo had and i forgot to mention jojo had been on the air for for a short while before i started and jojo chinto who i had a good conversation on the phone uh trying to coerce coerce him to get down here hopefully he will and i talked i and i'll tell you later i talked to him when i saw him a few weeks ago and i told him i was doing this and and just for listeners that this event that you were at a few weeks ago, and I told him I was doing this. And just for listeners, this event that you were at a few weeks ago, Bill's birthday party,

it'll be interesting when we get to this part of the episode, because when Peter Gross was here, he took this phone call, people who heard the most recent, the second Peter Gross appearance, he took a phone call from Jim McKinney during the episode. I kept it in. I wanted it in.

That's the stuff I like. The spirit of City TV. Jim was just saying, did you hear about Honickman's making that party again for Bill? Right. Are you coming on Sunday?

You were hosting a birthday party for Bill and Jim McKinney was phoning up Peter Gross to see if he's in. And I guess they both did eventually. We'll get to this,

but it's just, I love it when it all connects. It all interconnects, yes interconnects it's like the threads the fabric of this that's right it all comes together so okay so anyway yes sorry oh i was gonna uh speaking i was gonna put a pin in this but uh if there's something there you want to finish no no i'm just gonna say that uh you know i did that i passed the three months probation, but then I had to go meet Moses for the first time. Did you go to his office? Went to his office. His office was on the second floor in the old building.

We were on the fifth floor. I had never met Moses. Moses apparently was away when I first started at Citi. And I will always remember my first meeting because he wasn't overly impressed. Maybe that's how I can tell. I went to Vancouver and back and on these flights I was

reading. I had read it but I did a cursory read originally. Now I did a deep read, like read every word. Christopher Ward put out a book on the origins of much music. This is live. I have it upstairs. You can even borrow it. It's fantastic. But in this book,

there's so many people's accounts of meeting Moses, and it's really all over the map. Like, you get a good sense. It's not, a lot of people had difficulty with Moses. Like, Denise Donlan

was very honest about her struggles working for Moses and stuff, and a lot of people had issues working with Moses, and a lot of people, but everybody kind of acknowledges his vision and his genius, if you will. But a lot of people did have difficulty with some of the details he would focus on. Well, you have to put, and again, it's all context and all perspective. It took me a while, I'm sure it took other people,

to understand where's this guy coming from? He would talk about us doing the news, and he'd want us not to do any voiceovers whatsoever in a news story. Try to do it video verite and just have the camera and let it breathe. And all the things that you see now, he would talk about. I remember one time sitting in the newsroom between Mark Daly and Colin Vaughn, and Moses would come up and he would talk about his vision of the news and what it's at and what he'd want to do. And I'd look, I remember one time he's talking about, and I don't know if he actually used

the words reality TV or used the word reality somehow in there. And I remember looking at Carl, we'd sit at the back and sort of be like little school kids and go, oh God, and I'd say, what an idiot. Oh my God, yeah, right. And of course his vision was there and it was happening 15, 20, 25 years later.

He was just way ahead of the curve. But when I met Moses, it was, he, he, I, I know he was looking at, I was trying to, I was trying to be quote city TV or whatever, but I obviously wasn't. And, um, in no uncertain terms, it was clear when I walked out of his office that I was on, on Tinder hooks, that I was, I was hanging by a thread and and i had no idea if i was going to make it and and then again it's just it's just fate it's just the way things happen mike is that i came back to the i remember walking up those stairs back to the fifth floor going to gordon haynes's obvious well what'd he say what'd he say steve hurlbut who had a long long relationship

with who at that time was the 10 o'clock producer he's there and they're going all right don't worry about it all right you'll be okay and it was like rah-rah okay but i sort of felt that the message was i don't know if you're going to be here lauren well and then i get a call and on the other end it's somebody purporting to be a reporter from toronto life magazine it's uh it's a it's around march. And they said, hi, we're doing a story on people most likely to succeed in the 80s in Toronto. And we've got all these different categories. And you've been chosen as one of the people for media. And I'm going, who is this?

And it was Toronto Life. And I got in there. And they had a little shot of me. And they had that. And I got in there. And they had a little shot of me. And they had that. And I get into this. And I have no idea how I get in there. By the way, David Onley was in there. But not for media. He was one of the people most likely to succeed in the 80s.

Something to do with science and technology. Because that's. I needed to tell the listeners and yourself that uh there's an episode next week with ann romer which is going to celebrate the 30th anniversary of breakfast television david and david yes uh we're going to connect ann's phone via bluetooth to the board here and ann's going to call david live on the air and we're going to bring in david to talk about those uh early days beautiful i mean david you know, you know the old expression, you know, I got a real soft place in my heart.

And David Onley, I don't think, I think every single person, if you went through City TV and you found the staff list of everybody, they talk about David Onley exactly the same way. Good for you. And David, but back then, David david was doing something totally different so but once that article came out um and i don't know if it was coincidental i don't know if it had anything to do with it uh maybe i just got quote better uh but i think i signed my first contract with with city tv that's not a coincidence my friend i don't know i don't and the rest is history as history. I need to know because

the last episode, it's funny, we got Lauren today, but Lance Hornby from the Toronto Sun, and he talked about meeting Moses in his office back in the day, if you will. And he spoke about seeing a picture on Moses' wall of King Kong climbing

the CN Tower. Do you remember seeing this? Do you have any memories of King Kong climbing the CN Tower? I don't seeing this? No, I don't. Do you have any memories of King Kong climbing the CN Tower? I don't, I don't, I don't. But a listener, this is kind of neat, this only happened yesterday, so a listener heard this tidbit dropped by, just in passing he mentions this King Kong climbing the CN Tower. And some homework was done by a listener of Toronto Mic'd,

I think Brandon, I want to say. And he learns that in April Fool's Day, 1976, the Toronto Star put this picture on the cover of King Kong climbing the CN Tower. And they sold, you know, reproductions of this image or whatever. And one of them ended up in Moses's office. So there's the story. I don't remember that. And I didn't spend a lot of time in Moses's office through those years.

But I don't remember that. As a lawyer, you know how to say, i don't remember that night and i didn't spend a lot of time in moe's office through those years but i i don't remember that you don't as a lawyer you know how to say i don't remember that's a key phrase what you what you say no and that's interesting you said that mike because you know what you say to somebody when they say they don't remember you're saying it didn't happen you're just saying you don't remember it happened exactly right you're not saying it didn't happen you're saying i have no recollection of that happening that's true your honor he's that's where you take off the glasses yeah put them on and and and use that and say right exactly you you could do this yeah i think you too could get well you you did it uh later in your career we're gonna get to that uh i had mark hebbs here in this morning because he went he was uh doing hebsey on sports and he i

told him lauren hon Honigman's coming in at 10. And he said, oh, Lorne went to law school with my brother. Everything's connected. There was no Hebschers. I'm trying to remember his brother's name. Steve? I can't remember. I don't remember going to law school with his brother. Again, I'm not saying it didn't happen.

Right. No, you're saying I do not recall. You know the move. Okay. So a little tiny bit of housekeeping. I want to say hi to Lou Skeezes, who's listening. Lou, really excited about this episode. I saw you posted about it on LinkedIn of all places. Oh, did he? And Lou wrote, what is it? Better expand your cloud storage because Lauren has a treasure trove of stories.

Well, Lou and I get together. And of course, I met Lou during my fill-in days at AM640, and we did, I would think, some of the great shows. Me, Lou, and Jimmy Cochon. I was going to talk about that later. It was on the board. I don't know where Jimmy is now. Yeah, we're going to go in chronological order, but you could do a little Lou love right now. No, no, no, but Lou, I mean, you know, to me, you talk about a talent and a lot of people used to get really upset.

And Lou and I were just doing it. Because Lou would listen to the show. This is the great thing that Lou did. Lou did his business thing at the end, you know, and whatever, at the end of each hour. Happy capitalism. Yeah, but he'd listen to the show. So you'd be sitting there and you'd be talking and he'd go, and Lorne, youuren you were talking earlier about a b and c yeah and he'd do a shtick right and a lot of times he you know he he he he nicknamed me once hop along honey happy or hop along hoppy or something i don't know what

it was and people were getting yeah people were getting upset at like because he thought he you know maybe he wasn't being no but that but that, but Lou understood radio and, and, and Lou understood getting information to people. So, um, yeah, it's a mutual admiration society. I'm for sure. I'm happy to hear Lou say that. Now, Lou is a two-time guest on this program and so is Ralph Ben-Murgy and Ralph Ben-Murgy, uh, chimed into, he wanted me to ask you about yuck yucks. Oh, wow. Wow. Like, which is okay. So you're at legal aid yes no okay okay so give me this chronological chronologically i'm uh i i go to university i go to u of t i i graduate with a specialist degree in psychology criminology um i get a job at uh at legal aid

as an application officer and i'm trying to do my play-by-play right while i'm in university that's what i'm doing uh then i graduate and um and again i i i this is just the way it happens with me mike i i we go to yuck yucks i i met my wife uh kathy who um uh who we're coming up to 39 years married in november and she's home right now, hopefully watching. She just had a hip replacement surgery. But Kathy, when we first started going out, we'd go to Yuck Yucks. Because Yuck Yucks, and I think you had Mark Breslin on. I did.

We talked, yeah. I mean, talk about a Toronto institution. So we'd go there. And of course, everybody, all my friends would talk about me being one of the funniest guys in the world so you should do that lauren you should do that so yuck yucks it's a 1978 yeah yuck yucks had the amateur nights if i remember on tuesday night anybody who's never been up on the stage go up there so you know and i learned really quickly and any comic will tell you this that sitting around and being with your friends and being the funniest guy in the room and every that's one thing going up on the stage and making people laugh is another thing i was great with the room i wasn't great on the stage but i tried it and then

i ended up doing it for about three years and i met guys like ralph ben murgy who by the way was really good at it he's somebody who i thought, there were a few people that I thought, yeah, they're going to go. And one of the people that I said, yeah, he's going for sure somewhere. And you don't have to be a genius, was when we saw, Kathy and I saw, either it was his first night, second,

it was one of the first, Jim Carrey. Wow. And he, the expression in the comedy world is, he killed. And he killed. He came out and I can even tell you this, Mike, what he did that first night, if it was his first night, he did an imitation because you know, you know, Jim Carey, what is great way of changing his face. He did an imitation of Sonny and Cher singing, I got you, babe. And, and wave, you know, with, with Cher, with doing, with her hair going back.

And he was unbelievable. Wow. You know, it's funny to hear that because somebody who didn't see it coming was Mark Breslin. Right. Yeah. I'm sure, which is interesting.

Now, at the same time, Howie Mandel had just started, quote, killing at Yuck Yucks. And so you'd see these guys, Norm MacDonald. These are the guys that I'm going up on the stage with. And these are the guys who are killing. And you always know you're up on the stage

and when you watch these comics and the place is going wild and they got the timing and then you go up and you get a little... Yeah, that's what you get. Like that. Right, just like that. It's called a courtesy check. Yeah, and it's coming from the back. And you go, and you get a little, yeah, that's what you get. Right. Just like that. It's called a courtesy check. Yeah.

And it's coming from the back and you go, thank you very much. You know, and, and, uh. Oh, and it's Kathy. Yeah. It's Kathy or one of your friends who decided to come in and is really embarrassed. But I can tell you this, I did the standup shtick for about two and a half, almost three years. I never, uh, I never was the feature act at Yuck Yucks.

I was okay. I did a few things around in and around the GTA. And then a club opened up on Eglinton Avenue West called Giggles. And this guy, Eugene Yermas opened this club with his partner, Gary Pollack, and I got to MC there. So that was fun because Kerry came in, Bob Saget came in, So that was fun because Kerry came in. Bob Saget came in. Maurice LaMarche, some of these names. So I did the comedy shtick. I got up.

I was the host. But, you know, it was like I knew I wasn't ever going to. Their careers were all going there. I knew I wasn't going to be going in that direction. I've got to ask you about a guy. I had a long conversation with Ben Murgy about this gentleman because he had just passed away when Ben Murgy came over. uh i want to know about what you thought of mike mcdonald yeah oh did i say norm i know okay you meant mike i was gonna you said norm yeah oh i'm sorry i met mike oh wow wow what it well it made sense to me because norm i mean he was in ottawa and right

right no no sorry mike yeah he was such a such an incredible character but every comic i've talked to tells you about the how amazing mike mcdonald was like and so but you have mike mcdonald and jim carrey for example and the jim carrey of course well we all jim carrey became jim carrey and mike mcdonald it never seemed to he never seemed to make it in that visual realm right and and i never understood how or why the one person made it and the other person did besides what we always think about well you know we got a break here got a break there for example jim carrey my understanding is rodney dangerfield took a real interest in him early on in his career and and i don't know how much that would have made a difference but

when you look at jim carrey and you look how talented he is in his movies if when i think back to mike mcdonald i say to myself yeah this guy was just as talented he had a different quote shtick yeah he could do he made the faces he but he had different characters and and maybe somebody looked at it and said no i i don't know I'll give you an example of another comic there, just so you know. There was a guy by the name of Lou Dinos. And Lou Dinos, you see, when you're working as a lawyer, you got to keep your, I'm going to shut this off.

Is it Peter Gross? No, I was going to say. I don't know who it was. You can only have this. It was unknown number. Oh, yeah, yeah. But what happened was is that Lou Dinos was this incredible comedian. He was Greek.

He came out. We would sit and listen. He would kill, kill, kill. And you don't know. You haven't heard of Lou Dinos. Howie Mandel loved him. And when Howie Mandel toured North America, Lou was his opening act. And I always thought to myself, Lou Dos is going to be like freddie

freddie prince 100 we're going to see him in a situation comedy i would have bet every penny i had that would happen never did wow it's funny how that funny business right yeah no no and so so i got out when i when i got my quote break when city tv said, you can, you know, Gord Haynes said, we're going to give you this probationary period, blah, blah, blah. I was, I thought to myself, and nobody gave me this advice, but it was good advice that I gave myself. I said, I think I'll stop the comedy right now

because I think I want to be a reporter and there may be some issues here about being. Well, you want to be taken seriously. That was it. The integrity of Lauren Honigman, a legal specialist. Yeah, which was far in the future if I said anything.

Just Lauren Honigman as a reporter. Right. Okay, you made the right call there probably. Now, I also want to say, speaking of former guests, I just want to say yay because Jill Deacon is coming back to here and now.

So Jill's been off for a long time actually. She was battling breast cancer. And I got the news yesterday that she's returning, like, next week, I believe. So it's just good news. Former guest Jill Deacon feeling well enough to return to CBC's Here and Now. That's good. That is great news. Good news.

And, oh, JJ. Oh, I got a song for this to introduce this here a jj wants me to ask you about your love for classic rock who is jj i don't know i hope i was hoping you know but there's a lot of jjs out there but i don't know jj yeah no i love classic rock and that's obviously somebody who must know me. And any cameraman that worked with me, so maybe there's, maybe that's any cameraman, person, woman,

anybody who worked with me would know that I, as soon as I got in the front seat, we'd crank up the music and we would be banging on the dashboard listening to, back then it would be Q, I guess, and whoever, yeah, I guess, and whoever. Yeah, I do love classic rock.

Yeah, Q, well, Q was doing, for a long time, was just like rock. Rock, and then it became classic rock. Yeah, I do. I've always been a huge classic. I'd love to know who JJ is. Well, that's your department. Somebody you know.

Listen, I... I think it's a Twitter. I think you could probably tweet at the guy. had to crack that phone. Listen, I... I think it's a Twitter. I think you could probably tweet at the guy. It was probably a tweet. Oh, okay. So you could probably find it. Just search for Classic Rock Toronto Mike. You'll probably find that tweet there.

Oh, okay. But yeah, no, I've always been a classic rock fan. Any favorite... No, this is like... So you could, like Ralph Ben-Murray, you did this, for example, but you could return at a later date to just play and discuss

your 10 favorite songs of all time. With you? Coming back with you? Yes. Oh, wow. So you tell me in advance, you say, here's my 10 favorite songs of all time. I load them up and then I'll, for example, let's pretend you were a big fan of Deep Purple's Smoke in the Water.

Which I really wasn't. I mean, it is classic. What else I got here? I don't know what... You know, and this has been played way, way too much. I always play the hits, but okay. But no, you want to do that one day, Mike? That would be a lot of fun. I do, of course.

That would be a lot of fun. I want to kick out the jams with everybody, for sure. So who are some of your favorites? Oh, you were telling me your favorite, just a rundown of a short list, a couple of your favorite bands of all time. They're just the classic bands. I have Sirius XM,

so you look at my stations on Sirius XM. Of course, I have the Beatles station. You can't get tired of listening to Beatles. I've got Springsteen has been one of my favorite of all time. Bob Dylan, to me, has been my number one number one hero uh bob dylan to me just so you know um and i have this argument with millennials all the time who tell me that i don't appreciate drake and i don't appreciate rap and i go no no no i appreciate the man who created rap and i'll look at them and i'll say and i they'll go, what are you talking about? Dylan didn't create, oh, really?

All right, let's go. Subterranean Helms of Blues. Johnny's in the basement mixing up the medicine. I'm on the pavement thinking about the government. Man in a trench coat, badge off, laid off. Says he's got a bad cough, wants to get it paid off. What's that? Right.

Right, no, but what that is is that's phrasing, right? He created the phraseology of putting those words together. And plus, his words and his lyrics were about, you know, it's not like, I go to the store, give me more. I got my pants, I feel the tour. Oh, no. Right. Well said, well said.

And yeah, you can't go wrong with these guys, Dylan and Springsteen. Have you seen, I want to ask because a former guest has seen Springsteen live a hundred times. Have you seen Springsteen live? Yeah, twice. Twice, okay, not a hundred times. Sorry, I'll let Brad Fay know he's got you by 98. He's okay, he's okay. Bring down some Led Zeppelin there in honor of Keanu Zeppelin.

Yes. Now, let me give you some gifts here. You mentioned your wife had hip replacement surgery. Now, you're going to be able to cook a nice meal for her and this meal will have leftovers. You could probably have this three meals, I'm guessing.

This is a large meat lasagna courtesy of Palma Pasta. Wow. Palma's Kitchen is the new location near Mavis and Burnhamthorpe. They have four locations in total. There's three in Mississauga. There's one in Oakville.

Go to palmapasta.com to find out where they are. You can get your events catered. I had my wedding catered by Palma Pasta. Go to palmapasta.com for that or go to Skip the Dishes and you can actually just get them to deliver you some food

if you're wanting to check them out. But they're good people and we're happy to have them as partners of the show. So enjoy. Thank you. Enjoy that. And you've already noticed

there's another gift here. A six pack of fresh craft beer courtesy of Great Lakes Brewery. Wow. I put together a little assortment here but you're taking that home with you as well. This is Brode. It was Brode.

It was brewed very close to where we're recording now. They're in South Etobicoke. Super fresh, good family-run brewery, and they were doing craft beer well before it became the thing that everybody's doing. So they've been doing it for over 30 years, and they're excellent. And I need to tell yourself and everyone that there's doing. So they've been doing it for over 30 years. Thank you. And they're excellent. And I need to tell yourself and everyone

that there's an event. We're going to have a listener event at Great Lakes Brewery. They're near, I'm going to say, down the street from the Costco, but near Royal York and Queensway. It's going to be TMLX4, and it's from 6 to 9 p.m. on September 19th.

And we're going to record a live episode. So people can come and jump on a microphone and be part of this episode. So it could be former guests, listeners, anyone who wants to just come on and say hi. It's going to be fantastic. Elvis is going to be there for listeners, and it's in Pepsi. Yeah, Elvis is back. He's alive, and he's going to be at TML. And it's in Pepsi. Really? Yeah. Elvis is back. Wow. He's alive.

And he's going to be at TMLX4. So please join me. That's breaking news. You can phone that in. You'll probably be missed by a few stations right now. That's funny. 640 can get that exclusive for you there. Was that like a break?

We just took a break here? I thought you were saying goodbye to me? No, never. I'm just warming up with you. You're here no no no i'm just this is the thing about podcasts we don't do breaks like we don't stop down and do an ad read or whatever i'm giving you some gifts oh that's so nice of you i didn't realize that oh yeah and i guess this is real like i'm not even kidding i want you to know you really are bringing home oh no i know i did i figured that's why i was here because That's going to be great.

How mean would that be if I gave you a gift on the recording and then afterwards I'm like, you know, you don't get the gift. Thanks very much, Juan. Thanks for pretending you were excited, but you're not really getting that. You're not really getting that lasagna. I give the same, imagine I gave the same lasagna to every guest.

That's not a bad idea. That would be great. And I keep putting it back in the freezer. And everybody can sign it afterwards. That's right. Stickers, man. This is cool too. Wow.

That Toronto Mike sticker. I know you've been aching for one. And by the way, if you stick that somewhere cool, like your laptop or wherever you put that, send me a picture. I have to buy a laptop then, right? Oh, you don't have a laptop? Look it, I brought in notes.

That's right. You know, when I was in court recently and I spilt everything on my notes and somebody said, Mr. Honigman, why aren't you, everybody else has a laptop? And I went, what do you mean by laptop? And if you spilled something on a laptop, you'd be out of luck.

Like a list of paper, you know, you can get more paper. By the way, can I tell the people that you're rocking a BlackBerry, how old is that phone you got there? Well, no, this is the BlackBerry Classic, so it's not that old. But apparently I'm still the only person in Canada on a BlackBerry. But it has the... Tactile. Yeah.

Keyboard. Right. Whenever I go on anybody, you know, try to use somebody's phone, it doesn't work very well. So how fast are you on that tactile keyboard? You're like lightning fast? No, no. Who's lightning fast on a smartphone? I've seen it.

I've seen some teenage girls, for example. Oh, well, that's different. That's different because it's... My daughter's fast on her phone. I've seen it. I've seen some teenage girls, Oh, well, that's different. That's different because it's... My daughter's fast on her phone. I bet. I bet. Now, the stickers are courtesy of StickerU, and people can go to StickerU.com to...

And at StickerU.com, you can get one or as many as you want. Stickers, decals, there's some decals on the back wall courtesy of StickerU. Fantastic. They have a bricks and mortar store they just opened on

Queen Street. So check out StickerU and I have a contest coming up soon regarding that physical location they just opened up. So thank you StickerU. Now Lauren, this is exciting. What's happening now is that I hear, I'm actually

going to pause and we're going to be still live on the Per that I hear... I'm actually going to pause, and we're going to be still live on the Periscope here. I'm just going to run up because we're not home alone, and I hear somebody calling me. Excellent. Excellent. So you've got kids here. Just one, though, is here.

So three of my four kids are not here, but my wife's in Edmonton because she's tending to her father who just had surgery. So you can't say we'll be back right after this fatherly work? Here's what I love, and you don't have to do this, but this is my wish for you. Because I'm going to be back in literally 90 seconds. No problem. Could you talk on the mic about anything you want? Just share anything because then I don't have to edit it.

We can keep this. Can I tell people what it's like down here? Yes, do that. Okay. This is excellent. I haven't done this in a while, where I had to just talk. I used to be able to do this with my eyes closed in the old days,

and maybe Mike and I will talk about what it was like on CP24, or CablePulse24, as it was first called, or City News, I can't even remember what the first name was, where you had to learn to really fill the void, as we used to call it, or feed the beast, as we used to call it. And I'll talk to Mike about this, but I was going to tell you about this tiny little room that he has. But he has done, obviously, a great job in what he he does i didn't know at all about toronto mike i know a lot of you have been listening to him for a long time i you know just because i'm just not connected only

he's back um but what you said about me well no i i said you know that's it's it's it's quite um i'm quite impressed with what you've done and what you're doing. And obviously, a lot of people out there who are coming on the show with you, sponsoring you, agree how good you're doing. So that's great. I can't wait to listen back to that when I later put in. I was actually talking about the early days quickly

about going on live on CablePulse24 or cp24 as it's called now and and what that all meant so we can get into that okay we'll get into it so we got you we have you now at city tv so you talked about meeting moses and yes and you finally got a contract or whatever and right because you're in toronto life and uh you're you're a rising star. Rising star. Trying to be. Of the 1980s. And Basement Dweller says, please be sure to ask, Basement Dweller is a listener of the program, by the way. Please be sure to ask Mr. Honickman,

see, a lot of respect when you call someone Mr. Honickman, about his awesome collection of winter coats from his glory days on the legal beat at City Pulse in the mid to late 80s. He always looks so badass, stylish, no joke. That is a joke because I had the worst winter coat. I had, I don't, and everybody, if you found, if you saw any of the old video, I had this, I know what they're talking about,

this brown winter coat that had fur coming out of it. And people used to talk about that coat and I'd wear it and, uh, and it was pretty ugly. So, but I, but that's very funny. And there's, I got another question for you from Linda and Linda says, I hope it's not too late for questions for Lorne.

It's not obviously, cause I'm going to read it right now. What do you think Lorne is the biggest misconception that the average citizen has about the criminal justice system? Oh, wow. That's a heavy one. Yeah. We can do citizen has about the criminal justice system. Oh, wow. That's a heavy one. Yeah, we can do that in about four to five hours.

I think that there's, and you know what, Linda, I'd be happy to sit down and talk about that in detail, but there's a lot of misconceptions. And that's part of the problem, though, and Linda touches upon something that is very important important that i try to do through my career once i graduated from law school and went back on the air and started doing my show legal briefs and that is that people don't really understand even to this day how our legal system works they watch american television shows they've been watching them since day one. You know, you watch Law and Order.

You know, you're charged in the first half hour. The trial's over in the second half hour. They don't understand how the system works. And the biggest misconception is we are not like the United States. And what I always urge people to do, and I don't know if Linda or other listeners have done this. If you haven't done it, take some time and go down to the courthouse or the court, wherever you live, and sit in a court and watch it. You know what? When I think back, Mike, on my career, the greatest education for me before I ever went to law school was being able to sit in courtrooms every day and just watching. That was the beauty of my job when I became the legal

specialist, the court reporter. And that's what I urge people to do. And there are, and Linda's question about misconceptions. There are so many of them that you would get those all cleared up if you watched how our system actually works. Because in the movies, there's, you know, it's very theatrical. We see these American courtroom scenes and there's a lot of like dramatic moments. I was a foreman of a

jury on a murder trial. Oh, were you? Yeah. And on University Avenue there. And yeah, it's much drier than television. It doesn't have the, you don't see the theatrics. Right. But you also learn about like people don't understand and it's very difficult. Even lawyers sometimes don't understand rules of evidence and how it works, where the victim comes into the system. A lot of people think that the criminal justice system is the victim versus the accused, and it isn't. The victim has a say, we have victim impact statements. It's the crown. It's the crown, it's the state, it's the country versus the accused, and that's a huge misconception but what one i've always tried to do from the day i graduated from law school to the day to the to to now when i get asked to

comment on any case education huge just being able to let people know what our system is really about now you've talked about a bunch of the personalities you worked with at city tv i'm going to pepper you again on this because I love this stuff. Okay. So what was it like working with Gord Martineau? Well, Gord, the most incredible thing for a young reporter like me, and then as the years went on, you just shake your head. The thing about Gord was Gord could come in.

It could be, you know, you may not see Gord in the newsroom. And all of a sudden you see him five minutes to air or whatever. And something's happening. And the way he was able to just take a show and run it, and especially when we did the live shows, that was the greatest thing about city tv uh anybody you say well what was what as a reporter it was being able to go live or whatever well there were certain people gourd was one of them when watching him being able to read to even read

a throw to a story you know the the throw where an anchor goes good evening like watching him do that at the top of a show if there was a big story good evening gunfire in scarborough you know and you'd go whoa you know that you you would want he had that ability and i don't know if you're born with that ability um i i want it like anybody when i was doing anchoring when i filled in doing anchoring i i said to myself yeah i'd like, but I always knew. So you would fill in, remind us like when you were there. Oh, yeah. By the late 80s, early 90s, when Bill Cameron had left and the 10 o'clock spot was open,

people were in there. Gord was doing it for a while. He was doing both shows. Ann Roszkowski went in there. And then, of course, the great, great, great, I put three greats there, J.D. Roberts, who came over from Much Music. Right. And he came in there and then of course the great great great i put three greats there jd roberts who came over from much music right and uh and he came in there and i'd fill in once in a while and and you know what it was like for me mike it was like um same thing as when when i do the comedy and i'd be surrounded by the the greats and i'd say all right i'm i'm kind of funny and when i

did the anchoring i went you know you'd say to yourself i can do this and i'd look at some of the stuff i go that that's pretty i i i think i think i'm doing that pretty well you know walk over to david only when he was doing weather hide well david uh you know you said it was going to be sunny today but it was uh it was it was actually raining uh you know and david david would tell you if you, he used to have to tell me all the time, I'm just the weather guy. I don't tell the weather what to do. So I was good, but I wasn't great.

Gordon Martineau was one of the greats at doing that. Being able for somebody to hand him a script and say, here's what we're doing, or there's a turn in the show. So that was something that you just would always shake your head at and you would never not be impressed. And, uh, what about Ann Roszkowski? Fabulous. Ann was, was a great reporter. Um, you know, she, we used to do things, City TV did, there was a mantra that came from the second floor, came through Hurlbut, came to everybody in the newsroom. No story is about nobody.

You had to have people in your story. You had to be able to do things. Anne was one of those reporters who could always do that, but she was also the reporter who could also, when there was budget night, you know, and it would be, okay, let's get all the numbers. She put those all together. And then, of course, she ended up anchoring.

So Anne was also just another person you look at, you go, wow, great at what they do. And you never witnessed any conflict between Anne and Gord, did you? You know, the newsroom is... If I don't ask that question, I'll be pounded. No, no, no. The newsroom is a different place.

And when I say different place, I learned that because when I started working in a law firm, and when I graduated from law school and started working in a law firm, and the only place I had really worked a long time is a newsroom. And a newsroom, it's what you see. People would get mad. People would yell. People would do things. So no, my answer to

your question is no now jd roberts of course i mentioned the christopher ward book about the origins of much music jd roberts and christopher ward they're the first two vjs in right and jeannie becker i guess came on she came on a little later though because yeah if she was doing yes she came on and did uh like what they call rock flash i think they called it yeah but she was certainly part of part of uh much music as well jd roberts was unbelievable another person who uh and i i used three greats when i described him because um he was the the type of person who he came from this whole music this is this is the thing you know you sit there i'm looking at it he comes into the newsroom he always been his is rock and roll right he's interviewing every rock star everything he's doing that he's he's the

classic dj then vj uh doing all that and then he comes into the newsroom and you sort of look at okay well he's in the newsroom now you know this is now serious stuff and right away it's like you just go oh god wow wow why can i do that but the i don't know if you're going to mention mark are you going to mention daily because well i was gonna yeah well let me play play him first though let me just bit of mark daily here cp24 greater toronto's number one news channel can now be your first pick make us your default station on your digital cable box just simply hit the setting button twice on your remote. Follow the instructions on the general settings screen.

Scroll to viewer, power on. When the list of channels appears, simply highlight 24 and accept. There you go. Be in the know instantly. Whenever you push the on button, easy access to the GTA's number one news channel, CB24.

We'll get to CB24, but yeah, the voice. But here's what, and you could do a whole show on people coming on and talking about Mark Daly, but let me tell you what Mark's importance was to me as a reporter and what I learned from Mark. I just told you before about one of the great things about City TV, one of the thousands of incredible things about City TV and City Pulse was the live aspect, the go and just talk. And when there was what we called hot shots, okay, and that would be Glenn Cole would be sitting on the desk. And back in the 80s, if there was a gun call that was a big deal like

now you know it's unfortunately we're so immune to it but back then if if shots were if if somebody heard shots fired in scarborough i was mark had the number one pager i had pager number two so if mark couldn't go to the call i'd go to the call but i'd go to calls with him sometimes and you'd watch what he would do so you may remember back in 1983 there was a you may not remember this but there was a shooting at osgoode hall somebody there was a there was a court case somebody had come in um and uh and and a lawyer got shot. It was a huge story. And there was no CP24 there. There was no 24-hour news.

So you got to remember, anything back in those days may not make it onto six. Or if it happened on a Friday night, it wouldn't make it onto air until Monday at six, right? So you'd have that whole time. But Mark could do something that I always wanted to be able to do. And I say to myself, I hope I was able, not obviously ever to do it as well as him, but hopefully almost as well. And that is take the mic and do what was called a breathless back then. Police say shots were fired here at about 2 o'clock in the afternoon.

Nobody knew exactly what happened. I was talking to a police officer and do one of those and nobody did it like daily i mean like so so daily was up here doing it i was hoping to be i was down here i was hoping to be close but nobody did it like mark you know it would be like five o'clock uh shooting down the street something okay scramble the live eye let's go and and that's what we could do so well we had that live eye everybody had seen it at 299 queen street half that truck that's that's the original live eye right so when was that that was there get to get to the scene and and put put the cans we called these cans put the cans on on mark daily um and whatever

gourd would start you He asked about Gord. Good evening. Shots fired out in Scarborough right now. Let's go live to our crime specialist, Mark Daly. And Mark could do, Mike, three to four minutes. And he may have just been there for 30 seconds, but he could do three to four minutes. And he'd walk around.

He said, police are saying, buh-buh. And you'd look at him and you'd go, oh, God. Oh, God. Well, the voice. I mean, he had the training. Not just. And you'd look at it and you'd go, oh, God. Oh, God. Well, the voice. I mean, he had the training. Not just the voice. Yeah, that was his nickname. No, no, no.

But everybody talked about his voice. And I agree. But you have to understand, for me, and obviously the voice. But for me, it was just what he could do with those live hits. And that was my, so I sort of hung around him see now your phone is ringing and i think that that is that there's something oh it's peter gross peter should i get it peter gross hey peter how you doing i'm excellent you good now i'm talking to lauren honickman right now. Oh, sorry.

Lorne first. You're doing this on purpose, right, Gross? Because I told you I was coming on today. I wanted to interrupt it. That's exactly true. I didn't know that it was today. I won't interrupt, John. Let me call you later, okay?

Yeah, of course, man. Yeah, give me a shout later. We'll talk. But nice to hear from you because when you were on recently, you took a call from Jim McKinney about going to the party hosted by Lorne Honigman. So it's all full circle. It's perfect.

Everything wraps around itself. Yes, you do. So Peter, yeah, we'll talk soon. Absolutely. I hope you made some money on the horses. That's what I was going to ask him. The idea is not to lose too much. Him and McKinney were leaving for some race.

Saratoga. Oh, Saratoga, right. All right, my friend. We'll talk this afternoon for sure. Okay, bye-bye. All right, take care. See, I thought he did that on purpose because I had told him.

I had told him that day because he asked, when are you on? That's awesome. And I'm turning off my ringer now, although now I'm glad it was on for that. I turned off mine too. I think he was calling me first.

See, if I know, for that kind of stuff, if I connect my phone via Bluetooth to the board, we can get him on properly instead of on the speakerphone. And as soon as you're finished this thought on Mark Daly, I'm going to play a question regarding Peter Gross. So the timing was kind of amazing, but please continue. No, no, I was just going to say. So that's where I learned,

and he was watching Mark doing what he was, and he was such a character. You know, Mark, you talk to Mark, and he'd tell you he probably had done everything and anything that anybody had ever done in their life. You know, if Walk on the Moon, Mark probably had done it at some point, you know, but that was Mark.

And, but he, for me me just learning how to do those live hits that i was gonna say the big eight right this is the radio station at a windsor i believe yes yes that he that's that where he cut his teeth and that's like the best training for that sure and and another thing this i know this because uh ed conroy better known as retro ontario his last is that his name ed conroy he's the guy that posts these videos. Yeah, yeah, no, no. He, I love this guy. He comes on periodically. And last time he was on,

we did a deep dive into the career of Mark Daly. Oh, wow. That was what the whole episode was about. Oh, great. You got to dig that up. I'll dig that up, yeah. But Mark also had, he was really tight with the cops. So he had impeccable contacts on the police force.

It was unbelievable, yeah. And back then, in the 80s, he used to go out and shoot stories with one cameraman, this guy John Sandeman, who John ended up working for the Toronto Police for the rest of his career.

Another great cameraman. And he and Mark, whenever they got to a crime scene, you know, something happened, the two of them would be like together, you know, so they were like the team as well. But, but, but for me learning how to do that part of the job, Mike, learning how to do the live part, learning how to do those hits or those breathless as that, as it was called, uh, he was, he was the prototype and that's where

your mentor. Yeah. That's what I, that's who I learned from. Amazing. Now, here's a question from Brian Gerstein. He's a real estate sales representative with PSR Brokerage. And it's funny, it's about the man who just called us. So let's hear from Brian. Hi, Lauren. Brian Gerstein here, sales representative with PSR Brokerage and proud sponsor of Toronto Might. Galleria Condos are finally here. I'm attending the launch event on Tuesday, September the 10th, and we'll have the complete package and floor plans. Saturday, September 14th is the first day of sales. If you want one, call or text me at 416-873-0292. They are ideal to either live in yourself or rent out.

Lauren, being a huge sports fan and listening to Peter Gross recently and on Mike's podcast, plus meeting him in person, I would love to hear some of your recollections of working with Peter. Sure. Sounded like Moses, let you guys be yourselves and display your personalities on air.

Yeah, that's 100% for sure. And Peter, you know, he did that feature uh the world according to gross right that ended all the shows at six o'clock and they were fabulous they were they were you know again it was uh you you'd stick around you'd stick around and watch what did peter do today and uh so but yeah peter was one of those personalities and again getting and and brian touches upon something about allowing you to be yourself allowing you to be who you are as long that there's there's a difference between allowing

you to be yourself and what but city tv didn't allow you to be other things so you could be yourself no problem if that was encouraged but don't be what they. So you could be yourself, no problem. That was encouraged, but don't be what they would call, don't be that CBC reporter. Don't stand in front of a building and say, people inside tell me, blah, blah, blah. Don't stand and talk like that, or you're going to be in trouble. So you can be who you want, but we're also going to tell you who you're not going to be, or you're not going to be working here. One of the things that we used to do, just little things that used to happen, let the story breathe, right? Forget about wall-to-wall sound or voiceover. You'd start, if you were at, if you just covered a fire, you better start with about 10 to 15 seconds of that

fire. If you're doing a stand-up, you better be walking while you're talking. I remember at one time, I'm sitting at a crime scene. We're waiting for homicide officers to show up. And what people didn't understand is we were all friends out there. The reporters from CFTO were friends with us.

The cameramen, we were all out there. The people we worked with thought that it was like back then you would never in a billion years back then say the words sifto cfdo in a story or this was on ctv you didn't mention like unlike today but we were all out there and friends and and i remember austin delaney great great reporter still working um one of one of the great people in media in this city. Hopefully you'll get him on. Now I want to get him on. That's a great endorsement. I remember we were laughing at one scene

and I was trying to teach him how to walk and talk. I said, look, if you really want to work at City, and somebody, do you remember there was a guy, Gary Dunford? Of course. He listens to this program. Oh, does he? I get the odd note from him. Well, if Gary's out there listening, he may remember he put it on, he was page six.

And somebody had called or said to him, who was Lauren teaching? Lauren Honigman was teaching out. It made a little thing in page six. And of course, we laughed about it. But I think I got, you think I got some hell over that. Don't teach other reporters how to walk. That's what we do. But those were the things.

But can I just tell you something? Because this just reminds me of something. Of course. A lot of people get forgotten at City TV through the years that you don't realize, and it's so cliché-ish to say, but people behind the scenes. I've talked about the cameramen and camera people that I worked with at city, but there were editors and writers there that were unbelievable.

There was a guy who used to be, and I don't know the years he was the head editor. Paul Fox is his name. And we used to call him the rammer. And the reason is, or we'd call him the Fox or, but the rammer. But the reason is, is that he ran that show together. We call him the foxer, but the rammer. But the reason is that he ran that show together. It was his responsibility to make sure every single thing got edited and made sure it made it to air.

And unless you actually watched and saw how a show made it to air, you never appreciate it. And he was a character. And he was the type of person, and again, getting back to the personalities in a newsroom, you cut him up, he cut you up or whatever. There was a guy who did the graphics. Remember the names that would come up?

You know, you'd see... Did they call it cry-on? Is that what that's called? I think it was cry-on. Yeah, so it would say, you'd see the easy things about Lorne Honigman legal specials. Or if I was interviewing you, you know, it would come up, Toronto Mike. Guy's name was Dan Haber. An unbelievable talent. Why? He would put banners up on stories they were like headlines and some of them were you'd look at them and they would

they were brilliant and you'd watch him do his thing and you knew that this is a guy that this isn't what he wanted to be when he grew up was working that machine but always well i'm glad you're giving a shout out to these behind the scenes people because all we see is what's in front of the camera no no these people these people are and you know what this guy talked about dan haber he he was a guy who had one of the greatest sense sent is it senses of humor or sense of humors uh whatever whatever and and was was so brilliant in my mind of what he was doing and you you'd say, he could be doing a lot of things. And that's what City TV allowed.

You know, if you came in there and started working in the library or you started working as an editor and you wanted to move up, you could do that. If you could show that you wanted to be somewhere else, you got the chance to do it. And that was the wonderful thing about that place as well. Now tell me a little bit about Peter Gross and then tell the story we teased

at the beginning about Bill, the cameraman. Okay. So Bill, let me talk about Bill for a moment because I think it's important to understand. So Bill Atanasoff, one of the original cameramen from City Pulse. And Bill ran a company where he did a lot of freelance work. And so because of that, he wanted to free up his day. So he was a guy that would work the night shift when other people didn't want to work or he worked weekends. And Bill was out on a story in November 2010. And he was crossing the road, and it was what we call a hot shot. I told you a hot shot before.

So there was either police or fire. There was activity, a lot of police, a lot of ambulant paramedics, whatever. I think it was even on Islington. And he parked his car, and Bill always was very meticulous about this, didn't want to park where everybody else parked because he liked to get in get out get the viz back to the station and bill parked his car across the street and was crossing the four lanes of traffic and somebody was driving and somebody instead of looking in front of them was watching oh wow what's this hot shot taking place and he plowed right into bill crossed the lanes of traffic and hit Bill.

Bill went, I can't remember how many feet in the air. And because ambulance and paramedics were there, his life was saved. He probably would have died. And that was on, I believe it was on a Tuesday night. And on Monday, a Wednesday morning, woke up listening to the news. And all of a sudden I hear the lead story Tuesday night, and on Monday, Wednesday morning, woke up listening to the news,

and all of a sudden I hear the lead story is a City TV cameraman was hit, was hit by a car and is in life-threatening condition. And I said to myself, oh man, Kathy, I hope that's not Bill. And the second I said that, my phone went off and I said my other friend Al McCormick had calls and he said Bill just got hit by a car last night and I ran over to Sunnybrook his sister came down from Barrie and

and Bill at and at the same time to just show you how crazy things were Mike Mark Daly had had gone downhill with his cancer and there was a time that both him and Bill were at Sunnybrook at the same time. Because I think Mark died in and around the same time that Bill got hit by the car. And it was really, it was just this incredibly crazy time at that moment in time in history. So what happened was, is that Bill survived. He's basically a quadriplegic. He's blind because of the head injury. But what an incredible thing about Bill is is that he's learned to live with what he has.

And he's positive. He's always been. And so about three or four years ago, kathy and i started thinking about having a party for him as part it's in august and uh bill's got a great group of friends from all over the place and and that's so that was the context of that because i put out a mass email hey you know anybody from city and uh and so that's why peter was hearing from jim mckinney uh about uh about bill's party and uh so that yeah and that's bill and and you know what i think about if i can just say one more of course one more thing about bill one of

the great things about bill there's there's a thousand great things bill bill had this bill had a temper that everybody knew about i'm not gonna i'm not i'm not gonna give away secrets uh but bill was one of those people he'd get mad at you really quickly and about 10 seconds later he'd have a big smile on his face, and you'd realize that he's gotten over it. But Bill would want you to do things, and he and I went to cover, on the coldest day of the century, on one January day, a massive warehouse fire at Weston Road,

somewhere around there. And they set up a perimeter, but Bill was able to get us close. And what Bill wanted to do is he wanted to up a perimeter, but Bill was able to get us close, and what Bill wanted to do is he wanted to take a shot, come off the aerial, the guy standing on top, because the firefighter was having water back in, and it was freezing on contact, so he wanted to come off that to me doing the stand-up. I had no hat on, so I was losing body heat, so every time I'm doing it, he's coming down, and I can't do it. Oh, sorry. All right. Sorry. Sorry. Take five. Take five. Bill's getting sort on so i was losing body heat so every time i'm doing it he's coming down and i and i'm and i can't do it oh sorry all right sorry sorry take five take five bill's getting sort of mad and he

goes back up with the camera all right toronto fire god here but and i'm blowing it i'm now on about the 10th take and now i know i'm sorry to talk i can't do this freezing up freezing up yeah and all of a sudden i guess we don't know if the guy in the aerial was getting really upset with bill's sun gun light that kept pointing up at him but for some reason he dropped his hose and the water came right down on us we were covered oh wow we were covered in water and it froze immediately his his camera he couldn't open his camera. We couldn't get, when we went back to the station, we couldn't get the tape out so it could make it to air. Glenn Cole, former chief assignment editor, was upset to say the least. And the next day, I think it was Steve Hurrell,

sent Bill and I out to the Toronto Fire Academy. Our story was, what's it like for firefighters to work in the cold? But that's just one of a thousand Bill Atanasoff stories with me. So yeah, so that's Billy. Now that event, that birthday party that just passed in August, who are some of the, I saw a photo, so you, Peter Gross, and Jim McKinney, of course.

And Jojo Shinto was there, and Gord was there. Gord Marno. And what was great, you know, speaking of G Jim McKinney, of course. And Jojo Shinto was there. Jojo Shinto. And Gord was there. And Gord Marno. And what was great, you know, speaking of Gord, I found his phone number. I had it somewhere in my contact list, and I sent him a text. And within 10 seconds, he texted back, yeah, I'll be there. Wow. That's cool. Which was great to see. No, that's very cool to see.

Now, so Peter Gross, was it? We talked about Peter there. But just a few more names from the sports department then we'll move you on because you become a lawyer at some point i understand so now uh i want to talk about what about john saunders yeah and he was a great friend of gortz john saunders was a great friend of gortz he was another somebody who who could do the job really well and to do the job on sports really well, and that's why Peter was so good, you know that when you're a sports reporter, you're involved as any reporter on City.

You had to be involved in the story. They called it process, reporter involvement. God forbid you did this. And guys like John Saunders who could go out and get involved in a story and do it. He was fabulous. He was really, again, for me, coming in in those early days and watching these guys and saying, wow, am I ever going to be one day at that level to be able to do that?

He's a guy who went on to American success at ESPN. Yeah, a lot of people went on to it. I can name Terwin Joe went to the U.S. Mary Garofalo went to the U.S. Russ Salzberg, who came from the U.S., went back to it, you know. I can name, Terwin Joe went to the U.S. Mary Garofalo went to the U.S. Russ Salzberg, who came from the U.S., went back to the U.S. Thalia Asuris went to the U.S. And of course, J.D. Roberts. J.D. Roberts, yeah.

Who probably, maybe was the most successful from a news point of view in the U.S. Wow. Now, I could do that all day. Like I have my, literally the list of people. I didn't go to the US. Oh yeah, you know that. No, but you did go to law school. Like, so at what point,

you're a legal specialist on City Pulse, but at what point do you realize you'd like to be a lawyer? How does that happen? Well, the way it happens is, is reality sets in to a certain extent. And you say to yourself, it's the late 80s, early 90s.

And I realized I'm not going to be an anchor there. I'm covering the courts. I'm the legal specialist. My kids are young. Everything is going well. And the late Ed Greenspan, who I covered many of his trials, he used to always say to me, you know, you should go to law school. You should go to law school. You know, you should go to law school. and something kept bugging me about one part of it was where i said to myself mike am i going to be chasing people around with a mic all my life and and not that i had this great insight into the future but i did think to myself back then that this is probably more of a young person's job in a lot of ways and who knows what it's going to be like and And so on it. And you were like late 30s at this point.

Yeah, 38 is when I entered law school, but around 37 is when I wrote my LSATs. On again, the dare from Greenspan, he goes, just write them. See what you do. Like, just see how you do on them. The LSAT is the law school admission exam. And, you know, now they have like practice tests and all sorts of things so

i wrote it and i and i did well enough to be able to apply as a mature student so i applied to osgoode and and again you know uh my wife kathy who who who was there when i when i first applied to city tv and she's the one that's going yeah just keep just keep bugging them, and she's the proverbial wind beneath my wings type of thing, and always has been, is saying, yeah, write that out, yeah, Ed's right, do that, yeah, apply. So I put my application in, and then I get an interview at law school,

and I go for the interview, and I get interviewed by this professor, one of the professors who I ended up being my professor, this incredible guy, Alan Hutchinson. And Greenspan had written me a letter of recommendation. And in the letter of recommendation, he said this, in the many trials that Mr. Honigman covered in mine, I would seek out his advice and feedback.

And I'll always remember Alan Hutchinson, who's from manchester england he's holds this up and he goes why would anybody ask a reporter for advice and and i thought i walked out and i said well you know because we're smarter than lawyers or i said something really stupid and i'll always remember i came out and i said i called kathy and i said well we're not gonna have to worry about me getting into law school because that's not happening and then the awful awful story in um in uh saint catherine's with uh paul bernardo kristin french had gone had had been abducted and i was standing on a side road at the end of april in 1992 um because they had thought they had found krististen french's body and was we were waiting for

the coroner and everybody to arrive there and we had with us because we needed to keep in touch with the station one of the first cell phones what were they called that uh the bricks right yeah the ones that were like this and it's in the car can't tell or i can't i can't remember what it was and it started and it rang and we answered the phone and they had transferred a call or given the number. And a guy on the other end said, hi, this is Andy from Osgoode Hall Law School. Can I speak to Lorne Honigman? I went, yeah, this is Lorne. Oh, Lorne, congratulations.

We just wanted to tell you you've been accepted to law school to start September 92. And it was so bizarre. Here I am on this dirt road outside of Burlington because Chris and French, and I'm learning that I'm getting a law school. And so between April of 92 until September every day, I was like, no, I can't do that. Next day I'm going, oh yeah, I'll do that. So we have Eddie Greenspan to blame for this. Yeah. But, but what happened was, is that because Citi said to me uh and i say city and steve hurlbut specifically and of course through moses as well um because financially

i'm thinking to myself how can i do this i can't go to law school i'm making good money now at city uh kathy's a teacher but uh my kids are nine and seven and they said well if you can do this we'll let you work weekends uh you can be the weekend reporter from september to april and then april to september when school's over you come back and work full time and i went oh sold okay i did so i was working so i went to school monday to friday and worked at city on the weekends during those years well now i have a question regarding ed greenspan from braai he goes by the name name Braai, B-R-A-I. I once saw a clip of criminal lawyer

Eddie Greenspan verbally debasing reporter Honickman. Once Lorne joined the legal profession, they spoke cordially. So he goes, how would Mr. Honickman describe his relationship with lawyer Eddie Greenspan? You've done a pretty good job, but was it more, was there at

all some friction back when you were the reporter and he was the lawyer? There was sometimes because I was always one of those in-your-face reporters who would never stop. And what he's talking about,

the clip that he probably saw, was at one time, Ed Greenspan represented a guy by the name of Kirby Inwood who was charged with assaulting his wife who had come over from russia there was a trial and it was a college park and i i was following him with my camera the classic non-stop throwing the mic out and and saying i i'm not and he kept going i'm not going to comment i have nothing to say i'm not gonna and i kept asking and i think what happened was at that time he just finally said what is it about i'm not commenting that you

don't understand he got really mad or whatever just and but it wasn't live right because but we ran the clip so we would we would do that right we we would do that and uh i mean colin vaughn was the best at it just hounding the politicians and nobody did it better than colin yeah you don't see that a lot in these days do you you don't see reporters doing that with with other people very much anymore yeah i feel like the last time i saw something like that was during the the rob ford chaos and it was awful the rob ford chaos that was just awful but that's a whole other story that's another episode yeah that's another episode of of how covered Rob Ford at City Hall.

Okay, so I'm going to get you to CP24, and then maybe we could have a little conversation about news today and how it differs and stuff. But tell me about, I did play the clip of Mark Daly telling us how to add, I don't know, CP24 to our favorites or whatever. Well, that was an incredible time to be there when CP24 went on the air. So I graduate from law school i article and i'm away from the newsroom for for that year while i'm articling but but they bring me back

to uh you know and i i now i'm i'm now sort of the what i understand is the first lawyer who's now doing legal commentary um and i'd come in and, there'd be a legal story and I'd sit with Gordon, do a two minute chat about it. And nobody was doing it back then. Um, and I'm working in this law firm. I'm getting, cutting my teeth and I'm doing legal commentary. And then I hear about this 24 hour news station that's going to be starting. And, uh, just to cut to the chase, uh, I come back, city lets me run, uh, uh, me run my own little sole practitioner law practice. I'm working out of 299 Queen Street East, and I'm there for CP24 coming on the air.

West, sorry. 99 East, 299 West. And I come on the air, and I'm there for the launch of CP, Cable Pulse 24, as it was called then. And I was fortunate enough, I did the first talk TVs that were ever done in Canada. Yes, okay.

So here's the, I saw like a poster, like celebrating the launch of Cable Pulse 24, as it was called. And talk TV was Wednesdays from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., but it repeated overnight at 1.30 in the morning. So there you go. Lauren Honigman, our legal specialist and practicing lawyer, hosts Talk TV,

a weekly one hour of interactive television. Join Lorne and weekly guests for a lively and informed discussion of the events of the day. Our phone, fax, and email, so we had email now, are open to the megacity. Megacity, I remember we were calling it that for a while.

Viewers are encouraged to voice their opinions. Yeah. Cool. And it was great. And then that evolved into a show called Legal Briefs, which was the longest running show on CP24 and it ran for 10 years, 1999 to 2009. And what we did is we did the big legal story

of the day or of the week and the thing that we did that what and I had started doing this as a reporter many times is he started doing opening the phone lines so I'd have I'd have Mike with me Mike who is a an expert in in family law let's open the phone lines call us now with any of your questions so we would in family law. Let's open the phone lines. Call us now with any of your questions. So we would cover family law, employment law, personal injury law. And people just having that access. And then doing talk TVs. And then the other part of doing Cable Pulse 24 was the live part of it.

Where you would literally, I'd be covering a court case. The jury would be out. And they'd be thrown to me every half hour right all right let's go back to uh to uh three uh 361 university uh lauren hoddickman is there the jury is still deliberating lauren we talked about a half hour ago what do you think's happening in the jury room now you know and of course what you'd want to say is probably what was happening 30 minutes ago nothing new was that back to you but but you had to feed the beast as we used to say right so um so we would do it and and the and it was great the station had these great shows uh people used to laugh at first people would say they'd look at the enriched screen and they go oh god nobody God, nobody's going to watch that.

You know, and of course, they ended up and it's, the rest is history with respect to that. I remember this launch, of course.

I was very interested in all this stuff and I remember, I definitely remember that it took a while to get used to. So much was happening on that screen

and we weren't used to it yet. Like nowadays, you know, that was, of course, it was standard definition so it was like that different shape.

It looked more like, I remember it looked more like a square. Right now it's more like a rectangle or whatever. But yeah, you had your, you know, there's weather going on here and there's like a stock ticker, which I never cared about. And then there's sports scores going on here and maybe there were headlines here. And then there were ads, still would have ads running, but they'd be in the main box. And it was, there was a lot happening. A lot happening and people would say, oh, it's too busy. busy you know you want the full screen but it it it uh it changed so many different and it was great being a part of it and while and while i was doing that and i'm practicing

law and i got this sole small practice but i was also acting for city tv when we wanted to fight publication bans so you know it's it's interesting thinking back on that, Mike. So I'd be covering a trial, there'd be a publication ban or something, and we'd want to bring an application to get that ban lifted. So I would, you know, I'd go and get the robes on and bring an application on behalf of City TV. And I'd be arguing. And the Toronto Star did an article on me back then,

I think it was in October of 99, and they interviewed these journalism professors who called it, one called it an outrageous conflict of interest. I think somebody else called it an unconscionable conflict of interest. And it was like, no, this is just City TV. Our legal specialist is a lawyer. Well, I mean, Bob Hunter, right? Our environment specialist is Bob Hunter. Our political specialist was a politician.

Right. You know, so. Yeah, Colin Vaughn. Right. So it's, so that's, so it was very controversial back then. Oh, my goodness. And Jim McKinney was a Maple Leaf. You know what I mean?

Yes, he was. Yes, he was. And another, by the way, another unbelievable person. He's coming on for sure. Is he? Because he's told me, I mean, he told me, and he also told Peter Gross, we're just going to book him in and get him in here.

I'm looking forward to that. Jim, of course, what an incredible character. And a wonderful person, by the way. And I mean, if he's on these gambling trips with Peter Gross, there's got to be something good about him, right? It's going to be a fun story. He's going to come out of this. He's got lots of fun stories.

Amazing. So you're a day one. So when, okay, now I always, we should remind people in case they don't know, but Cable Pulse 24, obviously was 98. And of course it was part of the City TV. Was that Chum City? Chum City.

Chum City, yeah. Under that umbrella, which was also City TV, of course City TV. Was that Chum City? Chum City. Chum City, yeah. Under that umbrella, which was also City TV, of course. Right. And I always, at what point do you leave CP24? Do I leave CP24? Yeah, you're sorry. I leave CP24 at the summer of 2009.

So remember, City gets sold, right? Yeah. And then part of the deal is it goes to CTV, it goes to Bell, but they can't keep all of City. They got to sell it. They have to choose between CTV, it goes to Bell, but they can't keep all of city. They got to sell it. They have to choose between CTV, uh,

CFTO and, and, and city TV. They need to make a choice. They need to make a choice. CRTC says you can't have both. Uh, so,

so they, they, they cut it off. They sell the city to, to Rogers, but, and I guess they're saying to themselves today, Oh,

thank God. What a great, they kept CP 24. So they, they kept that part of it yes and so they so and for a long time i mean this is i mean i've had steve anthony for example and people like that we love talking about this there's a time here uh where so the breakfast television and we'll have a lot of talk about this next week when we have the celebration or whatever 30th anniversary but uh it's on both

for a long time because it's owned by all owned by the same company yeah and i i guess i don't know how it was reached what agreement was reached what would be the cutoff date but at some point there's a date basically when uh bell bell no ctv bell whatever it was called back then yes that owned cp24 uh they finally said you can't run this. Right. Yes, you need to start your own breakfast program. Well, yeah. So that's how that got changed. But my show, everything was going great.

And it's like the business. And then I learned in the summer of 2009, they decide that they're not going to renew my contract. And they're not going to keep legal briefs anymore um and they kept me on for a while doing uh legal commentary again well you'd be i would just throw out some compliment to yourself that you're excellent at that like if you need somebody to uh for us regular dumb people we need to understand the the legal process here or some ongoing big court case or whatever going on here you're very good at explaining it in a way that we can

actually digest it and understand well that's thank you and that's that's what i always try to do it because it's as we said we did we dealt with that with an earlier question but but what happened was mike and it's it's interesting so for the first time it's now 2009 it's first time i don't really have a full-time or semi-full-time gig on television since 1981. And it's 2009, and I ask around, and I make the necessary calls, the obligatory calls. Nobody's really interested. I'm doing a little bit here. I'm going on CTV's Newsnet or whatever that is.

Right. And I end up connecting with another Gord. Remember, my career in television started with Gord Haynes. And I end up connecting with a Gord Harris, who is the program director at that time at AM640. And we talk and he knew about my career in television. And he said, well, do you want to come in and do some radio? I had never done radio except into my cassette recorder with the toronto toro so he said come in and you can sit

on a couple panels or whatever and i did that for a while and then he said to me uh so this would be in early 2010 or in around there uh would you like to uh try hosting some talk radio. I never did that, sure. And so I did that and started doing a few of the shows. And the next thing I knew, he was happy enough that I'm now filling in. I became a fill-in host at AM640, and I did that for about seven years. And when AM640 is discussing something,

something legal, something regarding the law, I hear you on the station. I still do. I still are... I haven't hosted a show there since 2017. And they've got, you know... That's because Peter Sherman took over.

Peter Sherman, yeah, does a great job. He was here a couple of weeks ago. Oh, was he? Yeah, so he's doing that, and they have other people. But for a long time, I was the fill-in for Oakley. When Oakley was doing the mornings, and I would get up at 4, get to the station at 5, do his show 6 to 10, and then whip over to my office to practice law all day.

And I did that for a long time. So that was, but radio, and I told you what and here's the important thing I just want to say about am640 yeah when I started working there it was so similar to me about that I it felt like I was back at city tv in the early days why because there were a lot of kids there were a lot of people there who I knew weren't making a lot of money but they were cutting their teeth, they were learning about the business just like we did in television,

and there was a lot of talented people there, and like I told you, working with guys like Lou Skizis, but working with a guy like Jimmy Koshon, and we would do these shows when I would sit in for Oakley, four hours, and I remember the former vice president, I think that was his position, I think his name was Chris Pandoff, one day came down and said,

man, that was incredible radio. You guys, Lorne, you were able to do the serious, you were able to do the funny, whatever. But having a guy like, and again, I've lost touch with Jimmy. I don't know what he's doing now but uh he was he was an op a board op as i learned the words and and was one of the best uh gary bell was there too gary bell nicknamed me the call king the king of calls and i when i'd come on i would take i and i don't think they do calls anymore. I don't think talk radio does calls.

Calls are drying up for sure. I've seen people want to text. I don't know what it is. I used to come on and I'd say, and the phone lines, I could get them, one of the things that they like, and I guess because it was a different format then, I could get the phone lines lit up.

And Gary called me the king of calls. And yeah, the spaceman's no longer with us. Yes. There, sadly. But a nice note here about your time at 640 from a gentleman named Terry, who says, Lauren has an incredible knack

for taking complex legal issues and turning them into something understandable for the ordinary man. This is very similar to the sentiments I was sharing. A perfect example is his interview this week with Peter Sherman, where he explained the ins, outs, and ramifications of the Viet Train

terrorists Supreme Court over-transentence. So I wanted to, yeah, share that. Oh, thank you, Terry. Thank you very much. Yeah, well, there's an example. Yeah, really complicated story. It's very hard to do. You know, am I surprised that my phone

hasn't been ringing off the hook from the cbcs and the ctvs and even the globals to say hey lauren you want to come full circle right now we'll bring you back as the legal specialist now with you know am i surprised yeah but then again no you know maybe because i sometimes i never think about how old i am mike i play hockey twice a week i I do, until I get into an elevator. Oh, and you see that. And then I look in the mirror and I go.

I'm the same way, by the way. Oh, and I go, oh my God. Oh my God, who is that? Who's that old man? Yeah, who's that? So I don't think of myself, but I know that probably people will look at, you know, and people will say,

oh, no, no, no. We live in a very politically correct world right now, Lorne. Nobody would not put you on the air because you're an old guy with gray hair. But I don't know. Because for me right now, where I am in my life and what I've done, I have a really, really busy law practice.

I deal in libel and slander, internet defamation, huge right now. People who have blogs, people who have- Okay, I've had my run-ins with this. Oh my God. And I deal with that in my law practice every day. And it's getting worse. I have a client, for example, without naming names, who his business could be shut down, literally put down in 48 hours if we don't deal with those instances really quickly. 48 hours if we don't deal with those instances really quickly that's how the world is now wow and and it's it's it's it's a dangerous world out there because people hide behind cloaks of

anonymity right that's what they can do they go out there and they go i'll call myself this i'll put something out there to use the words fake news i'll put anything i want that's what's happened maybe this is a good segue to talk about what has actually happened in the news business. That's exactly where I want to go next. Absolutely. What I want to do next, and I don't think this is a conflict of interest, but we've been pumping your tires because you're an excellent lawyer, an excellent broadcaster. You're obviously, I would say, you're safe to say the country's best lawyer broadcaster. Is there anybody who's in second place? I don't know. I don't know. There's a lot of people out there.

I know Ed Prucci is on, and he's excellent at what he does in both his practice and he's on CFRB. But here's what I can say though, Mike. I can say, I think I can say this and it's true. I was the first. And maybe that's- The first, and I can say, you might not want to say this,

but I can say the best. Okay, thank you. Now, I want to pump the tires also of Rupesh Kapadia. This is Kapadia LLP is an accountancy firm. Oh. So there's CPAs that see beyond the numbers. And Rupesh is a partner of Toronto Mike. He helps to fuel the real talk so we can keep having deep dive combos like this,

which I'm thoroughly enjoying, by the way. Thank you so much. Now, thank you, Rupesh. I have a message here from Rupesh. This ties in nicely to what Brian does, selling you the Galleria Mall condos. And if you're a first-time homebuyer, listen to this. Hey, hey, hey, Toronto Mike listeners. This is Rupesh here from Kapiti LLP. We at Kapiti LLP always look beyond numbers in servicing our clients. One of the ways we do this is by providing them information on new incentives announced by the government. In 2019 budget, the federal government announced the First-Time Home Buyers Incentive.

Under this program, the CMHC, or Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation will assume responsibility of 5 to 10% of the mortgage amount for the first-time homebuyers, which means that the first-time homebuyers will not be required to make payments on the portion of the mortgage assumed by CMHC. For a new home purchase of about $400,000, this incentive can reduce the average monthly mortgage cost by $200. If you would like to know more about this, please feel free to reach out to us at www.kapadialp.com or you can call me directly at rupesh at kapadialp.com and we would like to help you further. Till next time, be calm and save money.

Thank you. And if you want a free consultation with Rupesh, just give me a buzz and I'll hook that up for you too. Rupesh is very easy to talk to and he sees beyond the number. He's a rockstar accountant, for goodness sakes. You'd love him, Lauren.

Now, we have, yeah, we have you, okay, so, what's the best way to approach this? Basically, I had this conversation two days ago with Lance Hornby from the Toronto Sun. And my concern, and it doesn't apply necessarily to the Sun, but I've had other reporters tell me this is what's happening. They're basically looking at what stories get the most views or clicks, if you will. Right.

And then that's what they're going to report on and write about. Now, this is sports, so it's not as important as news. So it's a little different. But I can see that being a slippery slope. Like, if you're only going to get the news that people will tune into, for example, the Kardashians have a breakup or something. This is something a lot of people would probably click through and want to see. Maybe that shouldn't be the lead story. Let me hear you speak about it. How has news changed in that regard? What are your thoughts? It's completely different

and it's not something that I think has been a good change. Because it's hard to know now what the news is, what's credible. And that's, that's the problem. See in, in the quote, in the old days, it's, you'd come on at six o'clock and somebody may have heard of an incident during the day and you'd come on, you'd get your news. And, and the key thing is, is we have the credibility. People could trust us. They knew that when we were out there, we were asking the questions that are important and they knew that that's what was important and that's credibility. You have to earn that. Nowadays, by the time something gets to six o'clock or the news or a newspaper,

it's happening all day. There's thousands of sources. Who knows what's true and what's not true? That's number one. Number two, and I don't, you know, I guess it's easy now for me to be, you know, you sit back and I don't want to be the old guy who's going, oh, when I was a reporter. You don't want to be Abe Simpson, the yellow cloud. Right, right.

But I will say, when I was a reporter, using the shooting on the Danforth as an example, just use that as one story. When I was a reporter, we would be a piranha on the neck of the police and not letting go until we got the story. It's not just when a politician says, and this is what happened and that's it. It doesn't seem to be the same anymore. It's like somebody says something, a politician, the prime minister comes out and he

says uh everything is fine with i did absolutely nothing wrong and blah blah and you go oh okay no problem okay thank you very much the prime minister said he did nothing wrong really well there doesn't seem to be that same energy that same type of we've got to get to the truth like what's changed there i don't know maybe it's more now it's just more on views now rather than the news but that's the danger mike and the danger is knowing what is actually the news that's why when you get people now think about how how important it is i don't think people understand how important it is when someone uses these words oh no i can't watch cnn somebody just says that you say to yourself well, well, to use the proverbial Houston, we've got a problem. Because when somebody says that, why can't they watch it? They can't watch

it because of their perception of what they are actually seeing and hearing. And why is that? Because if you could have somebody saying, it's fake news, it's fake news, it's fake news, it's fake news, it's fake news, and somebody will say, okay, well, wait a minute. What does that mean? How will they become credible to me? And why aren't they credible? And if somebody says, oh, well, that station does that, that's a liberal station, that's problematic, Mike. And that shouldn't be happening. But it is happening today. And so if somebody wants to say some incident takes place,

and then they go on the internet, and they go to a thousand different blogs, and that's where they're getting their news from. So it then becomes, well, what is it? We can't even cut through it. Why aren't those questions being asked? I'm not really happy like with with the news business the way it is if i ever and i was saying this before if somebody came back to me

and said hey you know what let's do a full circle here lauren come on wrap it up you did your legal stuff and whatever come on back now for you know you still got the energy or whatever you're going to do the legal you're gonna you're you're to anchor our show you're going to be the legal you're going to do whatever it is i'd have to come in there and say okay no problem love to do it do it in a heartbeat i think it would be perfect for me but i got to make sure that we're doing the news and we got to make sure that we're getting the facts and it's not just it's not just views it's news and it's and it's coming out there that's what i would if i could change anything right now and you need to ensure there's a separation between you know the news department and the sales department i feel like those two departments uh used to be uh you know kept

separate for good reason and not always uh the case anymore right and everybody's a reporter now right you wake up in the morning and you're just like, okay, and now you're reporting and now you're giving your views. And now, and it's, and there's, there's also, and you correct me if I'm wrong, because I'm not connected to social media. And, and we, we could spend a whole day talking about why I made those decisions. But, but I know because of my law practice and because of people who are coming to see me all the time, it's cruel out there. law practice and because of people who are coming to see me all the time right it's cruel out there it's people uh words matter and people will say what they want do what they want and that becomes that may be the news that may be happening that you know if you wanted to go out right now mike if you wanted to hide behind a cloak of anonymity and say just heard that uh the reason that this

happened in toronto was because this, this and that. And then that becomes, that starts trending. And then you go, well, then finally somebody has to come out and say, no, that. And then, so what is it? What is it? And because people have to start asking the questions. They're not asking the questions. Why did, why did that stop?

I don't know, but it seems to have stopped. You know, what you talked about rob ford let me mention that quickly people were more interested you know it's like it's it's let's get the salacious okay yeah i understand i understand why that was the story i'm not taking anything away from it but it was just like you know you're like what kind of questions if you'll go back take a look at some of those some of of the visuals, go look at the, some of those scrums and say to yourself, what are you learning there? What was that all about? Right. You know, what, what was that all about? What were you learning? And, and, and, and again, I don't mean to be lamenting it. I don't

mean people out there to go, well, he's just an old, you know what? And, uh, you know, no, I could, I could fit in, in this moment, I could do it in a heartbeat, but I would try and do it right again, because I think that that's how we would serve everybody a lot better rather than just going, okay, well, great. Oh, really? So there's Dan Force shooting. Yeah. Okay.

And we've got nothing to say. Oh, okay. No problem. Thank you very much, chief. Thanks a lot. Talk to you later. Okay. So there's, you know, Lauren Honigman, you have clearly have a wealth experience. So you bring that perspective, which is in my opinion,

invaluable. It doesn't seem to be as appreciated as it should be. The fact that you can actually, you know, oh, I appreciate you. Oh, I saw this in, you know, 1985 when this happened, I saw this. You know, you have that, which, you know, the kids coming out of, you know, university don't have that. So you have the perspective and you have the experience. You're very well spoken and articulate, good communicator. You have an abundance of legal experience. You're an actual lawyer, practicing lawyer. And you're telling me that they, you know, these organizations are not, you know, please sign here and come over. You know, I'm being a little facetious with that.

I'm not thinking that they should be dialing me up. No, but I'm curious, because I had this conversation this morning with Mark Hebbs here about all these Sportsnet layoffs, okay? So they're doing cost-cutting. And I didn't say it. Hebbs, he said, they're all old white men, is what he said. That was his observation. They're all old white men.

And I pointed out that, this is a phrase i've i started using since yesterday and so i'm going to use it again but i don't see it as so much as ageism but i see it more as wageism like it's just it happens to be that the the high earners maybe in that industry are typically older white guys maybe the nature of and listen i i don't want to say that i don't want to come out right now and say that, you know, because I'm an old white guy and what Hepsey was saying. But I can tell you that, as I told you when I first went to law school, the thing that went through my head way back then is whether or not

an older white guy is going to be able to stay in the business. I didn't know why I was thinking it to myself back then, but I just sort of thought it. And maybe there is an age aspect to it. And I don't know what it may be, but I can tell you this, and I want to make this point because this is really important. Perception will always be there. I'm not saying that we're going to change people's perception. I'll give you a perfect example. The biggest legal story I covered in my career at City TV was the abortion story, the Morgenthaler story, the abortion clinic coming to Toronto in 83, the trials that took place

after. That was the first time I stepped into the Supreme Court of Canada in 1987. And I will never forget that. And that's something that I watched and I went, my god that's where I'd like to be maybe one day as a lawyer but back then no email whatever so anybody who wanted to get to us would send us snail mail and you'd open it up every day and one day and this is the true story and this is about the perception of watching the news and if it was like that then when I'm about to tell you think about what it's like today. So I open up a letter. Dear Mr. Honickman, my name is da-da-da.

I've watched you do the abortion story. You are obviously pro-choice and pro-choice alone. They should put a woman on that story, not a man. You obviously are very prejudiced. Okay, I put the letter down. I used to respond to letters. Open open up and in the same letter batch, Dear Mr. Honigman, I've been watching City Pulse News for many years and I watch you doing the abortion story. You are obviously anti-choice. You are obviously pro-life and you always want to have Ken Campbell and Laura MacArthur on blah, blah, blah. They should put a

woman on that story, somebody who understands what being pro-choice is about, not a man. Thank you. So back then what I did is I photocopied those letters. We had photocopiers. And I wrote on them, I guess I'm doing my job. And I sent them to each other, to the other person. My point being, Mike, is that that was the perception, right?

No matter what I did. And I tried to be. I tried to be like when we always did this as fair as possible that was crucial had to be fair had to get both sides if i was out in an abortion story and there was a protest in front of the clinic i had to get the the pro-choice if it was whatever i would always do that but yet the perception was there so if it was there back then right when we try to be as fair as possible think about what has happened to perception today when you could when you would arguably and rightfully criticize

that that's nothing that's not fair coverage so how do we fix this like uh it's i'm very frustrated because i i like yourself i see that it's broken and I, where's the hope? Like, what do we do for our kids? Yeah, well, somebody's got to sit back and somebody's got to just go back to first principles. And what I'm talking about is first principles. I'm talking about that, that if you are a reporter, and I didn't learn it in journalism school because I never went there. I learned it on the streets, quote unquote, by doing the job. And by doing the job, I learned that you got to get people will close the door on you. People aren't going to speak. But if you're

going to take that role, that's going to be your role. You got to do it fairly and you got to be persistent. It's first principles of being a reporter. It's first principles of what the news is. And that's what I would change. And guess what guess what mike it wouldn't be as hard as you may think i think if somebody went out there and said okay let's let's regroup it's time to regroup because society's not really being well served here but if you're not if you're not the cbc and you do your vision and then there's no eyeballs right uh so maybe what you're maybe what's going to end up happening mike is is what you created and maybe there's going to end up happening, Mike, is what you created. And maybe there's going to have to be the podcaster. And there's going to have that because there are the podcasters.

You now are doing it as well, if not better than anybody else. So people now have to follow this. Maybe the Lorne Honigmans of the world and the Looskises. You mentioned him. Maybe that's what we do because if that's the only way to reach, if mainstream media is now saying to itself, sorry, we can't compete anymore, we don't want those people anymore, we're going to do bang, bang, bang, and that's it

because by the time you get to us at 6 o'clock, we know you've already decided what the news is. Well, maybe that's the way of the world, but whatever the world goes and whoever the reporters are, and whoever's out there doing this, try and do it right. Because that's where we are now running into. You pick up a newspaper, you read, you go, is that true? I don't know.

I have no idea. There's certain reporters who still say that too. Laurie Goldstein, anything he writes, he's the greatest at what he does. Kevin Donovan, Toronto Star, he writes an investigative piece 100%. I know it's credible. Just don't ask Mike Bullard about that. He'll disagree.

Okay. That's my opinion. That's my opinion. But there are certain people that I do feel I can trust and read. Other people, I don't know. I have no idea. Are you following a mantra? Are you following a philosophy? But I do feel I can trust and read. But other people, I don't know. I have no idea.

Are you following a mantra? Are you following a philosophy? Do I have to start talking about, well, you're... Yeah, do you have an agenda? Do you have an agenda? I don't want... I think it's awful. It's awful that somebody would say, well, I'm not going to watch CNN.

I'm not going to watch... Look at what's on CNN. Oh, I'm not going to watch Fox News. I'm not going to watch... No, I'm not a CBC guy. I'm not going to watch CBC. CBC, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to watch that. I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to watch. No, I'll watch him. I'll read him. Well, you should be able to say, you should be able to say, again, when I was a reporter, we did the stories

all differently. You'd watch our story. We'd do it. We'd all go. We'd all say, we'd sit and watch the six o'clock news and we'd sit in a room and I have global up cbc up a cfto up we'd be in the right corner and we're watching us and you'd watch your story go up and you'd all go oh that's way oh you did oh man you kicked ass there you kicked out but it was the same story right the facts were the facts the facts were the facts the presentation was different it was done differently there was there was it would it had more meaning i think and i would i i would argue but at the end of the day you better get the facts there you know you can't have just you know it wasn't just form you had to have the substance as well and so you knew you knew that yeah everybody had the substance there oh well

maybe i got the picture they didn't but at the end of the day it it was all there. I can't say that now. I can't say that now. Lauren, I could do four or five hours here. You're going to have to come back. Seriously, that was fantastic. No problem. Thank you for having me. You're going to have to come back, and I'm going to need your help.

I get these letters sometimes accusing me of, what is it, slander? What is it when you, and all I did was read from what I learned from the Globe and Mail. Well, we'll talk. You and I will talk one day the difference between defamation

and freedom of expression. And sometimes people don't realize that. But think, listen, can I thank you? You can, of course. Two years ago, you asked me to come on

and I was busy or whatever and you got me. I wasn't going to bring that up, but yeah. Yeah, you got me on and thank you very much and I appreciate it. Well, thank you for doing this.

And honestly, this is one in a multi-part series. I've got to do more Lauren Honigman episodes. By the way, why aren't you on Twitter? Do you even have a burner account, or you just decided to skip the whole thing? Because this is the part of the show where I drop everyone's Twitter account, but you don't have one. No, I don't have one. So you won't find Lauren Honigman on Twitter. Oh, no, but I'm easy to find, because you you'll google lauren honnickman you'll see this big

picture from my law firm so uh somebody wants to send me an email my email's there they can send it so i'm i i can't totally disappear and that brings us to the end of our 503rd show you can follow me on twitter i'm at toronto mike la Lauren's not on Twitter, but our friends at Great Lakes Brewery or at Great Lakes Beer. Propertyinthesix.com is at Raptors Devotee. Palmapasta is at Palmapasta. StickerU is at StickerU and Capadia LLP is at Capadia LLP. See you all next week when we have a very special tribute to Martin Streak. You've been under my skin for more than eight years.

It's been eight years of laughter and eight years of tears. And I don't know what the future can hold or do for me and you. But I'm a much better man for having known you. Oh, you know that's true because everything is coming up rosy and green. Yeah, the wind is cold with the smell of snow.