Author, editor, historian, and darned frustrating writer to fact check is how I will remember Peter Newman. I was a lowly fact-checker at Maclean’s, Canada’s weekly newsmagazine, back in the day. Peter Newman roamed the halls at deadline, checking on everyone’s progress and making light conversation. Extremely light conversation.

Peter Newman was a man of words but not particularly inclined toward the spoken variety. He ruled the roost at Maclean’s in that way that intimidating figures do. If Peter wanted it this way or that way, then that is what Peter got.

Peter Newman was old school. A Vienna born Jewish refugee from Nazis, he barely escaped being shot as he was about to board the ship that would take him to Canada. He had a fierce drive to find his voice and his place. He certainly accomplished that in the firmament of Canadian journalism and literature.

As a fact-checker, our job was to review the copy submitted by the writers and then painfully, line by line in red ink, underline the ‘facts” in the piece and verify them. We had an array of reference options in the Maclean’s library as our go to. Facts on File was a standard reference guide. Webster’s dictionary to check spelling. No internet back then.

We would also have to call people mentioned in stories to verify facts. I remember a dear colleague (Ann MacGregor gone way too soon) had to call Harold Ballard, then-owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs to have him confirm if, indeed, he had “steely blue eyes.” She never admitted whether she asked Ballard if his eyes were “steely” or not. Confirming the color was likely as far as she got. Ann was tenacious but a little timid.

The point of fact-checking was verification and corroboration. A directive from legal to avoid libel and slander suits, no doubt. That meant we had to have two and preferably three verifiable sources to support the facts in the story, complete with the usual bibliographic elements: source, date, edition, page number, author, etc.

Peter Newman wrote a weekly editorial column for the magazine. Woe betide the checker who got Newman column to review. Peter helpfully provided his own “references.” They would be passed to us along with his copy in clipping shards from one magazine or another.

No author’s name. No identified publication. Page number and issue or edition number was a joke. We trembled when it was our turn to “fact-check Peter.”

We could not properly do the job we were supposed to do with Peter’s copy. It was impossible. But it was Peter Newman and Peter Newman’s word was gospel. We shakily passed our finished copy along to research department head Arlene Arnason. She would swallow any misgivings she might have had about any other writer and say, ”Well, if it came from Peter, I am sure it is okay.” We all sure hoped so.

On Friday nights when we had to work late to put the magazine to bed, Newman would make arrangements for his secretary to call up his buddy Ray Kroc, Canadian McDonald’s CEO. We ate Big Macs and quarter pounders to our heart’s content. Those were the days when it didn’t matter how much cholesterol we ingested. Or booze when I think of it. (After the magazine was put to bed.)

The old guard of Canadian journalism from the 20th century is leaving. Many have already left. It is ever the case as one generation hands the torch to the next one. The world has evolved in such a way that the job we pursued with such passion as young journalists seems a little quaint now. The accusation of “fake news” makes my blood boil in a way that maybe only journalists steeped in the exactitude of our research traditions understand.

I harbor deep concerns that the world of facts and information is nowhere near as regulated and important as it once was. In World War II, posters warned citizens: “Loose lips sink ships.” If anyone understood the power of words to shape and distort the facts and negatively impact people’s lives, it would have been Peter Newman. RIP.