Jeff's Reviews > Off the Record

I was torn between giving this a 4 or a 5. (Goodreads needs a rating system out of ten!) I decided on a five simply because of how quickly I finished reading it, always a sign of a captivating and well written book. Mansbridge was the face of CBC news for over 30 years before his retirement as a network anchor in 2017. His book follows a similar format to fellow Canadian Alex Trebek's, in that rather than a standard autobiography, the book is a series of collected anecdotes and stories, presented in chronological order. For the most part, each short chapter stands alone with nothing muc to link each to previous or subsequent ones. I think this style of memoir makes to a quick and engaging read. Mansbridge doesn't offer too many surprising behind the scenes tales. Some of his anecdotes involve connecting with famous people and political leaders, while others involve ordinary people. A number talk about some of his CBC colleagues. He does offer a couple of chapters on the state of journalism, addressing to a point the lack of trust that many in society have in journalists today. He does try to see both sides of the story and reiterates how he worked hard to keep any biases out of his reporting, but then damages his crediblity somewhat with a couple of hyperbolic statements about Trump. That was my only minor issue in what is an interesting look at Canadian broadcasting and political history as seem through the life of someone whose job it was for over 30 years to describe that history to Canadians as it was happening.