Marc Horton's story

A newspaperman says goodbye: Journal Books editor Marc Horton writes '30' to a career that spanned 37 years and a lifetime of stories
Edmonton Journal
Fri May 26 2006
Page: A2
Section: News
Byline: Alan Kellogg
Column: Alan Kellogg
Source: The Edmonton Journal

Monday will be a historic day for lovers of Edmontonia, and it will have almost nothing to do with the Oilers.

For the first time since July 15, 1969, Marc Horton won't be working at the Edmonton Journal, filing another story -- clean, on deadline, to the point. It's a loss for the paper, for the city he loves so well. It will never seem quite the same around here. They always say that. But this one is real.

Don't break out a case of Costco Kleenex boxes. It was his decision to retire, still disgustingly healthy in his 50s. He wasn't even nudged by management, never mind pushed. Far from it.

And as of this weekend, he, wife Miriam Trottier and No. 2 son Chris will be celebrating the first days of the rest of his life from a suite at Quebec City's venerable Chateau Frontenac. Any lingering doubts -- he expresses absolutely none -- will be quickly washed away with the odd flagon of Maudite ale or an unprepossessing Malbec. For Marc, walking the cobbled streets of Vieux-Quebec is a practised raconteur's Disneyland, the real deal. Canadian history, French spoken everywhere, musette and playoff hockey drifting from cafe windows. Bookstores on every corner and a different cream sauce for every day on the Julian calendar fit perfectly in the Horton cosmology.

Newspapering is genetic in this case. Grandfather Leslie Horton owned and operated the Vegreville Observer for years, and Marc's father Ted Horton's legendary News of the North was a Yellowknife institution. Marc literally learned the fundamentals of the biz from the ground up, operating the Linotype machine as a young teen, filing northern stories to the CBC and elsewhere when most kids his age were delivering newspapers, not editing them.

He began full time at The Journal a few weeks after graduating from the University of Alberta. Six days later, astronaut Neil Armstrong delivered his "one giant leap for mankind" speech from the Sea of Tranquility. That year was anything but peaceful back on Earth, as tectonic plates creaked, generational change beckoned. Edmonton wasn't immune, but there was a certain time delay. The culture at The Journal was still resolutely male and macho, as Marc recalled the other day.

"I made $80 bucks a week, and that wasn't so bad at a time when you could rent a decent apartment for $75 a month. The newsroom scene was out of the movie The Front Page, guys chewing on cigars, tough guys talking tough."

As he might be prepared to admit at certain times, there is still a measure of that to the man today, leavened by a big heart and a determination to live in the moment.

Over the years, he covered the waterfront for the paper, moving as a reporter and manager from hard news to sports, movies and lately, as books editor -- the best in our history.

Like the rest of us at the shop, he wonders about the future of newspapering. It's been his life. He's got mixed feelings.

"Newspapers make money, lots of it, and aren't going away any time soon. I don't feel uncomfortable advising anyone young to get into the business. There is still room for eccentrics and being idiosyncratic isn't necessarily discouraged and sometimes it's actually encouraged, protected. But I'm not sure things are moving in the right direction. Everywhere, newspapers are owned by big corporations that bleed them dry and have no conception of what newspapers are all about. There's nothing more depressing than empty chairs in a newsroom, and there are plenty of them around anywhere you look."

It was entirely appropriate that Marc co-authored the splendid Edmonton centennial book Voice of a City. As long as I've known him, he's never confused mindless boosterism with a profound appreciation of the city he was born in.

"I love this town. I've been to a lot of other places and never found somewhere more comfortable, with its ease of living. We don't have the pretensions of Calgary or the arrogance of Vancouver, not to mention the woebegone nature of Winnipeg. And yet it's a vibrant place, particularly in the arts and getting more so, hard-earned. It's a blue-collar town, and I like that, too, with little of the corporate mentality of Toronto or Calgary. But there is a cautionary tale there, too, since we've had it all before and lost it."

He's planning a couple of other books now, a good thing.

Nor has he ever ceded one centimetre in railing (!) against the notion that being a loyal and true Albertan is the exclusive turf of conservatives, small or large "C."

"I'm a left-wing guy, always have been. You don't have to sell life insurance to be 'normal,' and The Journal isn't Pravda. One of the satisfying things about the paper has been the freedom we've been afforded. You go out of town and it's not like that in many places."

Any measure of a career well-served involves minds moved, lives touched. Journal columnist Todd Babiak is a longtime fan.

"Growing up in Leduc and later, especially in university, Marc's movie reviews were the talk of the town. Arguing in absentia either in favour or against one became a point of pride in my circles. Doing movies for the Gateway, you'd see him walk into a theatre and we were star-struck, whispering: that's Marc Horton. He brought a lot of young readers to the paper, no doubt about it."

On the subject of his departure, the man himself provides an anecdote. As he knows far better than most, every story needs a closer.

"We were walking through the National Portrait Gallery in London, passing images of Lennox Lewis, Muhammad Ali, Martin Scorsese, John Mortimer, Oliver Stone. And it occurred to me that I had interviewed all of them. This fat guy who grew up in Yellowknife. How sweet is that?"

Sweet for us all. For this one, he's not only taught me a lot about professionalism in our calling and never losing sight of the reader coming first, but on the value of friendship, family, heart and never forgetting those less fortunate. I love the guy, and while you accept his decision, I'm not crazy about it. He's an original, and they don't come often in life, or at work, or in the course of any city.