- MacPolitics: Could Steve Murphy Become Next Mayor of Halifax? – I am thinking out loud here
By Andrew Macdonald
One year, I speculated on Liberal chatter from Liberal strategists that 45-year-long TV and radio broadcaster that Steve Murphy would make an excellent future Liberal leader, returning the party to power in Nova Scotia
Today, The Macdonald Notebook speculates on The Murph as he is fondly called, becoming the next Mayor of Halifax.
Such a candidacy could stop socialist Waye Mason in his tracks, were The Murph to enter the mayoral race, to be decided next fall.
Retired CTV Atlantic News anchor Steve Murphy poses with Halifax mayor Mike Savage in this file photo. The Murph would make an ideal Mayor of Halifax, I humbly suggest. (The Notebook photo).
The Murph would know all the public affairs issues facing Halifax Regional Municipality.
But is it just wishful thinking, on my part?
The Murph would be a formidable political opponent – and any such mayoral candidacy would have to be taken very seriously.
Here is my recent story on his December 2022 retirement from the anchor desk at CTV Atlantic:
Steve Murphy retired after 27 years as the anchor of the 6 p.m. broadcast of Atlantic CTV News from its Halifax quarters on Robie Street, in 2022.
Murphy began his journalism career in 1977 at a radio station in his home of Saint John, N.B.
In 1986, he became the host of CTV’s Live at Five, and in 1993 became the host of the supper hour news. A whole generation of news consumers has grown up watching Murphy deliver the evening TV news.
According to a story in the Saint John Telegraph-Journal, Murphy has also helped raise over $125 million for various charities in Halifax and New Brunswick. He has been a big booster of the IWK Health Centre and is almost synonymous with the annual Christmas Daddies Telethon.
After he signed off Nov 30, 2021 saying he was “grateful” to the thousands of folk who would watch his nightly newscast, Murphy attended an invitation-only soiree in the ballroom on the second level of Lion’s Head pub, across the street from the ATV station.
That event mostly featured current and past CTV staffers, such as now-retired living legend TV journalist Rick Grant, and former 1980s-90s producer of the newscast Dick Pratt.
Also absent were politicians, although regional politicos frequently appeared during the nightly broadcasts and talked to Murphy, who I think was the TV journalist who asked them the best questions.
However, former seven-year-long Nova Scotia Tory leader Jamie Baillie did attend the Murphy retirement party, but I think it was because he and Murphy co-chaired the United Way fundraising campaign in 2009, raising a record amount for the charity, a figure not matched in more recent years.
Murphy always ended his newscast with the closing “Be well.”
These days, ‘Be well’ is also a common pandemic and post-pandemic wish, but when the pandemic began in the winter of 2020, I asked ‘The Murph’ his origins of the sign-off message.
Here is an encore presentation on that topic, which originally was carried in The Notebook in April 2020
Steve Murphy & The Origins of His CTV Atlantic Newscast Supper Hour Sign-Off
Maritimers who tune in to the number one local 6 p.m. newscast on CTV Atlantic know that Steve Murphy has a unique broadcast sign-off: “Be well.”
Murphy has not trademarked his supper hour message, but today, ‘Be Well’ is the greeting Maritimers wish folk in these coronavirus pandemic times and post-pandemic times.
I reached out to Murphy about this unique newscast sign-off to understand the origins of his “Be well” nightly send-off.
Now a topical well wish, Steve Murphy has ended his CTV nightly newscasts with the saying: “Be Well” since the early 2000s.
“I’ve been signing off with ‘Be well’ since at least the early 2000s,” Murphy tells The Notebook.
“Legendary WABC New York anchor Bill Beutel ended his broadcasts with the expression ‘Good luck, be well’. I always liked it, so when he retired, I picked up the ‘Be well.’
“It does seem a particularly appropriate expression in these difficult times,” he adds.
There have been significant changes to how his news team is gathering its information for the supper hour newscast in the wake of the pandemic.
“The changes in news production involve the use of FaceTime and Skype for interviews, even our feature-length current affairs segments. Yesterday alone, I interviewed the premier of New Brunswick and the CEO of Stanfield’s via social media streaming video,” Murphy previously told me.
“Our reporters are working from home, our producers are spread across the television station, and the control room has been reconfigured,” he adds. “Broadcasts are all being live-streamed and online consumption has increased significantly.”
Murphy’ signed off his email message to me, of course, writing: “Be well”.
Murphy until November, 2021 was the executive news editor and anchor of the CTV News at 6, the Maritimes’ number one newscast and top-rated television program, as reported by Numeris in 2019.
A member of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters Quarter Century Club, Murphy started his career in 1977 at CFBC radio in Saint John, N.B.
As host of ‘The Hotline’ on CJCH radio in Halifax, he was twice nominated as Canada’s best phone-in broadcaster, says his CTV biography, which adds he was the principal host of Live at Five for seven years before assuming his current role on the CTV News in 1993.
“Steve in 2020 marked his 30th year anchoring a supper-hour broadcast on CTV,” the station tells me. “During that time, he has hosted hundreds of live remote broadcasts from Canada, the U.S. and the United Kingdom along with dozens of election broadcasts and news specials.
“Steve has interviewed scores of major newsmakers and personalities of the day including five Canadian prime ministers, several foreign heads of government and dozens of provincial premiers. He has also anchored CTV National News and is a contributor to other CTV National News programs.”
His bio adds that Murphy was recognized with a national award from the Radio-Television News Directors Association for his interview with Nova Scotia fisherman Phil Halliday following his release from a Spanish prison. He is also the recipient of the RTNDA’s Lifetime Achievement Award and St. Thomas University’s Eldred Savoie Award for Excellence and Dedication in Journalism.
Murphy is the author of three national bestselling books, ‘Before the Camera’, ‘Live at 5: the Story Behind its Success’, and last fall published his third book, Murphy’s Logic.
“Steve makes at least 25 public appearances a year, predominantly emceeing fundraisers for the IWK Health Centre, the Progress Club’s Spring Auction, the Walk So Kids Can Talk, Valentine’s Gala for Hospice Saint John, Hope in the City Breakfast for the Salvation Army, and other events in support of non-profit organizations,” the bio reads.
An active volunteer, Murphy served two years as co-chair of the United Way’s Halifax Campaign. He chaired the Christmas Daddies Fundraising Association for 15 years and has hosted the annual Christmas Daddies broadcast for over 30 years. He has also hosted the IWK Telethon for Children for close to 20 years and is an honorary trustee of the IWK Foundation, the station says.
“He received the 2016 Local Hero Award for serving on the regional advisory council for Prostate Cancer Canada.
Steve Murphy is the father of two adult children, Nora and Brendan.
Nora, now herself a mother, has strong Antigonish roots. Her mother, Noreen Nunn, Murphy’s former wife, is a broadcast legend in her own right.
At one point in the 1980s, Murphy was a brother-in-law to Jim Nunn, the anchor of the CBC supper hour newscast, then called First Edition.
One-on-one with CTV’s Steve Murphy
The below is a 2021 archived Notebook story, when The Murph retired from CTV:
Now semi-retired from his role as CTV Atlantic news anchor, Steve Murphy has a new role on the Maritimes’ “number one newscast.”
He now is described as the CTV News “special correspondent, commentator and analyst.”
The name of his frequent TV segment – Murphy’s Logic – is a play on Murphy’s Law. Murphy served as CTV News at Six chief news anchor for 29 years, before stepping down last December.
To learn about Murphy’s new role, I caught up with him for a broad-ranging talk in 2021.
On the evolution of Murphy’s Logic, he said: “Commentary was one idea that came to mind. It’s one of the things I will be doing … I will also do pieces that involve perspective and some reporting of that kind.
“But, I think the commentary area is one area where, to be quite honest, I am interested to get back into it because my career in television and radio really started as a commentator and talk show host. It’s kind of back to the future,” he explained.
“I think it is an area where we don’t have nearly as much commentary as we used to. We are also going out of our way to make it clear that this is commentary. This is an editorial. We are not conflating it with reporting. We are being very clear this is opinion.”
He says that distinction is important, because one of the major problems being faced by media is the conflation of editorial content with commentary.
I asked Murphy if he thought of launching his own website with a paywall, rather than going with CTV.
“No, I did not consider that, because the opportunity CTV has given me is really what I want to be doing because it is different than what I was doing before, but it is in the same realm, obviously. It keeps me current in the news and public affairs area but at the same time it allows me to do something different,” he added.
“So really, this is the most satisfactory opportunity I could ask for at this point.”
Newscast has 225,000 viewers
CTV Atlantic’s 6 p.m. newscast hovers around a quarter of a million viewers a night, said Murphy.
“When you stop to think of it, television audiences have declined over the years, but the news audience has remained very strong in this market.
“But the notion that people don’t watch television news anymore is just not true,” added Murphy. “People are still watching television news and I would say a large number of people still watch it at 6 o’clock, and even more people get it online later, either the entire newscast or the individual items and interviews.”
On his former newscast, Murphy conducted interviews in the studio – including with many Maritime premiers.
I asked Murphy about his favourite premier to interview over his 45-year news career – a straight shooter who would take both his easy and hard-hitting questions.
“Well, I think I can tip my hands by saying the last guest I interviewed on CTV News at 6 p.m. was Frank McKenna. He was my final guest,” said Murphy. “I interviewed Frank, I do not know how many times from the late 1980s right through to 2021.”
Former Financial Post journalist and author Quentin Casey speaks with retired CTV News anchor Steve Murphy during a book launch in 2022. (The Notebook).
McKenna became New Brunswick premier in 1987, taking every single legislative seat, and governed into the mid-1990s.
“I think Frank McKenna was and is a straight shooter. He was one of our most successful premiers in Atlantic Canada in my lifetime,” noted Murphy. “I think we had some notable premiers, but I think he would be nearly at the top of the list.”
Murphy’s big broadcasting break
One topic I was keen to talk to Murphy about was his big break in broadcasting in his hometown of Saint John.
Murphy opened up about his first job in grade nine as a 15-year-old in 1976, announcing Woolco department store and restaurant specials on weekends in the Port City.
“How it all started, when I was 15, I got a job doing the PA jobs at Woolco – the $1.44 specials and my dad was a manager at Woolco, and when that job came open on Saturday afternoon barking at the specials, I came in and put on my best-crushed velvet blue jacket and for $2 an hour, I was announcing the Red Grill specials,” he said.
“It kind of whet my appetite for announcing.”
Woolco was a Canadian department store chain, with its legendary restaurants. It was sold to Walmart in 1994.
“I was always very aware of journalism and news. I got hooked on news during the whole Watergate affair in the early 1970s because of a grade seven history teacher named Terry Kelleher, who kept us up to date in class every day about what was going on with Watergate. And he was listening to As it Happens [on CBC] with the amazing Barbara Frum. I started listening to it because I was very keen to find out what was going on with Nixon, and all the latest with [Bob] Woodward and [Carl] Bernstein,” he recalled.
At the time, a former mayor of Saint John, Bob Lockhart, was one of the owners of CFBC radio.
“It’s one of the great southern New Brunswick radio stations that dates back to the mid-1940s. It is still on the dial at 930 AM,” said Murphy
“My father and he one day, [were] talking over the back fence, and Lockhart said maybe I ought to go in and do an audition for some newscasting,” he added.
“I make no bones about it, Bob got me in the door to audition for what was supposed to be a part-time radio news job. And, one thing led to another, and the next thing you know I was working full-time after school,” he added, chuckling, “It didn’t please my teachers or parents very much – but it pleased the hell out of me. But what did I know? I was 16-17-years old, and I was working by then in a newsroom.
Steve Murphy’s final newscast as chief anchor of CTV Atlantic, where he signed off last December of 2021. (Screen capture by NB Telegraph-Journal.)
“That is how I came to be in a newsroom the night Elvis Presley died and the night of the Saint John jailhouse fire.”
“I continued to work in radio through the end of high school. Then I said I was going to take a year off and work in the newsroom, and now I am 45 years [in and] into my year off when I stepped down.”
