I was hired as a news reporter for CFTO in Toronto, the flagship station for the national network, CTV. It was 1983. I was 29, eager to please, bright-eyed with a ready smile, shoulder-length, thick blonde hair…and terrified.

Within the first two weeks of starting to work at CFTO-TV, I was assigned to cover an internationally reported story—an accident at the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station in Ontario. Fuel rods had cracked, releasing a deluge of radioactive water under the floor of the reactor building. The situation was brought under control, nobody was injured, and no radiation leaked into the environment.

My reputation did, however, take a bit of a beating. I was doing Take One (this was not live) of the final reporter wrap-up, in front of the power plant. You know, the one that ends with, “Rosemary Parrett, CFTO News.” My voluminous, 80s-style hair was bobbing in the wind as I stumbled over some words and then said, “Blaaaaaaaaaaa…Take Two!” I then went on to record my second, flawless Take Two.

Well, as it turned out, the video editor of my story used Take One instead of Take Two, so my “Blaaaaaaaaaaaaa…Take Two!” went to air!

The next morning, when I entered the newsroom, I approached the assignment desk to receive my marching orders for the day. But instead, I was informed that Ted Delaney wanted to see me in his office, upstairs. He was the Vice President of Programing, and all the top brass had their offices upstairs. He was about 50 years old, rotund, balding and cross-eyed.

Was I going to be fired two weeks into the job? Granted, this was my first news reporter job, and I had made a mistake on air.

I held that handrail to help me up those twenty stairs. I trudged to his office, and gingerly knocked on the door, which was ajar. He knew it was me:

“Come in, Rosemary…” he grumbled. I pushed the door open and entered his sizeable office.

He shifted a bit in his seat and pointed to the chair in front of his formidable desk.

I sat down gently, tucked my hair behind my ears and folded my hands in my lap.

“Rosemary…” I could tell by the tone of his voice there would be no pleasantries…

He stared, sort of at me, with his big crossed-eyed brown eyes.

“You are going to be a good reporter!”

But….oh no, I thought, what is he going to say? Am I going to be demoted?

“But…”

Yes? I was leaning so far forward that I almost fell out of my chair.

“But…you got too much hair.”

I did, indeed, cut my hair, and I and continued to report on national stories.

Those stories included the Dr. Henry Morgentaler court cases. Morgentaler conducted a high-profile campaign to secure legalized abortion in Canada and was at the center of the legal cases that brought this to fruition. On a day he was to appear in court there were two available reporters to cover the story: me and Lin Eleoff (now a “gutsy, glorious life coach”). Thing is, we were both quite pregnant at the time.

The News Director, Derwyn Smith, called the two us into his office and said: “Which one of you would like to cover this landmark story?” I jumped at the opportunity!

As an aside, I recall receiving a final 50-page judgment at 4:00 in the afternoon and I had to have it summarized into a one-minute and thirty-second story by the 6:00 News. Now that really gives one a sense of accomplishment. I think I did more than redeem myself after my “Blaaaaaaaaaaa…Take Two!” fiasco.

I can’t write an article about cutting me teeth as a journalist without including two key takeaways that any journalist can relate to.

The first one is from the News Director that I mentioned above.  He used to have a mantra: “If in doubt, check it out. If still in doubt, leave it out.”

And the second takeaway was from the Vice-President of News and Public Affairs, Ted Steubing, who used to call me on the carpet on a regular basis, lecturing me on how to improve my stories. His mantra to me was, “Tell ‘em what you’re gonna tell ‘em. Tell ‘em. And tell ‘em what you told ‘em.”

Once he gave me shit for starting my story with a clip from an interview of a widow of a police officer who was killed on duty. Mr. Steubing informed me that you “never start a story with a clip. You start with your best picture and your own voice.” To this day, when I hear a news story on the radio or see one on TV, I get irked when the reporter starts the story with a clip. I must add that, despite Stuebing’s protestations, that widow story was nominated for an award.

In summary, I have to say that TV news reporting was my favorite job of all time, and a close second is being the host of The Rosemary Keevil Show, a morning drive time, current affairs radio program. Now, that’s another story, starting with: it doesn’t matter what the hell your hair looks like on radio.

(The demo tape of my TV news work, playfully entitled “Hair and HairAfter” is on the About Page of this website: https://rosemarykeevil.com/tv-demo-video/)