Eric Malling Set the Stage for Excellence in Journalism

<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">There are TV news personalities and there are journalists&period; The former read copy that’s written by newsroom staffers presented to them via a teleprompter&period; The latter are the ones who go to the crime scene&comma; dig deep&comma; gather the facts&comma; and&comma; often&comma; expose corruption&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">If you ask a Canadian of a certain age whom they watched regularly on the television news and trusted implicitly during the latter part of the 20th century&comma; the odds are great that they’ll reply without hesitation&colon; Eric Malling&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">The late <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;49thshelf&period;com&sol;Contributors&sol;M&sol;Malling-Eric" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener">Eric Malling<&sol;a>&comma; who passed away in 1998 at age 52&comma; was a Canadian journalist who was known and regarded for his deeply researched and hard-hitting investigative reports&period; <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;montrealgazette&period;com&sol;entertainment&sol;television&sol;the-big-reveal-40-years-of-the-fifth-estate" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener">Eric Malling<&sol;a> embodied the term &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;investigative reporter&period;” Throughout his career&comma; he covered all types of stories with tenacity and a relentless demand for detail&period; In doing so&comma; he set the bar at a high level for the news professionals &&num;8212&semi; the journalists &&num;8212&semi; who carry on his legacy today&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Born in 1946 in Swift Current&comma; Saskatchewan&comma; Malling graduated from the University of Saskatchewan with a degree in English literature&comma; then continued his studies at Carleton University in Ottawa&comma; graduated from the School of Journalism&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Initially joining the business as a print reporter with a nose for news and a determination to get and tell the story at all costs&comma; Malling served stints at the <em>Regina Leader-Post<&sol;em> and <em>The Toronto Star<&sol;em> between 1969 and 1974&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">He made his mark during this time with a report on the invocation of the War Measures Act during the FLQ crisis in 1970&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">After covering Parliament Hill for the The Toronto Star and The Washington Post&comma; Malling moved to television at CTV&comma; where he was hired by Bureau Chief Bruce Phillips&period; There&comma; Malling conducted interviews with numerous politicians&comma; establishing himself as a formidable television reporter&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;I knew Eric was just such a hell of a good solid journalist that it would come through&comma;” Phillips <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;archive&period;macleans&period;ca&sol;article&sol;1981&sol;4&sol;13&sol;the-knight-of-the-fifth-estate" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener">told<&sol;a> <em>MacLeans<&sol;em> back in 1981&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;And that’s just what happened&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">In 1976&comma; Malling’s profile was raised even higher when he was named co-host of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation &lpar;CBC&rpar;’s flagship newsmagazine <em>The Fifth Estate<&sol;em>&comma; a position he would hold until 1990<em>&period; <&sol;em>One of high points of his time there was the documentary he produced that detailed how government-owned Canadair lost &dollar;2 billion and paved the way for the establishment of two Parliamentary committees&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Malling would be perceived as a true star in the world of journalism&comma; but he simply loved telling stories&period; Getting to the bottom of something big was his forte&period; You might say he even changed history&comma; as that was what literally happened when his 1985 segment exposing the public sale of millions of cans of &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;tainted tuna” led Federal Fisheries Minister John Fraser to tender his resignation&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">In 1990&comma;  Malling decided the time was right for him to move on&comma; so he returned to CTV and joined the staff of <em>W5<&sol;em>&comma; a news show that was later renamed <em>W5 with Eric Malling<&sol;em>&period; The committed investigative journalist continued tradition with a number of new&comma; in-depth stories&semi; among them&comma; some powerful reports on fiscal crises in New Zealand and Saskatchewan that led to a national debate about government debt&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Malling was honored for excellence in journalism with no fewer than seven ACTRA&sol;Gemini Awards—the most awarded to any single person at the time of his passing&period; And he twice received the highest award for investigative reporting from the Centre of Investigative Journalism&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;