The Dean of Saskatchewan's press gallery says goodbye to the papers
Murray Mandryk departs his longtime position as Postmedia's senior political columnist
There were whispers in the last few weeks that it may be coming.
But this morning when it was made official on Twitter and in the Regina Leader-Post and Saskatoon Star Phoenix that Murray Mandryk had indeed written his last column for those papers, it still felt like a clang.
Murray has been an institution in Saskatchewan politics and Saskatchewan media for over forty years; he’s the corporate memory for the Saskatchewan Legislature in many ways. Over the years his words have both delighted and irritated political parties and governments of all stripes, in equal parts. Anyone that has tried to put a political label on the guy, based on any column of the day, was likely swiftly reminded by his column the next day, that nope, we actually don’t have this guy figured out after all. That’s probably one of the reasons why we’ve kept reading his words with anticipation for so long.
I’ve marveled in recent years, particularly since I’ve been writing on this publication, at how hard it is to write regularly, and to get words on to a page at a tempo that Murray has done for a long time. A few years ago when I wrote a monthly(!) political column for Saskatchewan Postmedia papers, I found myself admiring Murray a lot. It would take me weeks to write these columns, to craft a thesis and build ideas and original thoughts, to make sure every word was perfect so that I hit exactly the right tone. Imagine doing that several times every week.
Not every one of Murray’s columns in the Leader-Post were home runs; in recent years I’ve found his columns to be finding almost too much balance, but in a forced way, as if an editor was constantly nagging him to do that. But the skill and mental capacity it takes to write 600-700 word columns at least four times a week makes my brain hurt just thinking about it. The man deserves a lot of credit for the work he has done.
In my early years in the Saskatchewan Party government, as a young aide I was tasked with researching news articles from the 1990s and early 2000s during the NDP days of Roy Romanow and then Lorne Calvert. In that process I came across numerous columns by Murray on issues of the day where, to my surprise, he was extraordinarily critical of the government of the day, and in fact featured many of the same themes he was now writing about regarding the Saskatchewan Party government. I realized: “He doesn’t just hate us!!”
If Murray wrote at length (as he has for many years now) about the GTH land issue under the Saskatchewan Party government, he was equally perturbed by SpudCo with the NDP. Murray hated the Sask. Party’s LEAN program in health care; well, guess what, he has also been irritated by the NDP’s opposition to third party surgical and diagnostic services.
In 2018 I interviewed Murray for my podcast, Talking 306. It was one of the first conversations I recorded for that podcast and happened shortly after I left government in August 2018. It was a wonderful thing to have a free-flowing conversation with a journalist and not be constrained by, you know, working in the government. Talking to Murray in his legendarily messy and crowded office in the press gallery at the Legislative Building, was a treat. Here’s that episode. (The audio quality is terrible…I was early in my podcasting journey at that time. I also wish I’d taken a photo.)
Since we did that podcast I came to know Murray a little bit more, or at least have tried to know him. Our chats over coffee (some on the record and some off) informed his writing (I’m thankful to him for this piece about mental health in politics that he wrote after interviewing me), and I was also able to understand him a little bit more and how the press gallery looks at and covers politics in Saskatchewan.
Murray’s departure from Postmedia likely has nothing to do with the work he has done, or anything else that he did or didn’t do. In fact I would bet it was his columns that have been keeping the doors open, so to speak, at the Leader-Post for quite a while now. His departure is part of a continuing trend of traditional and legacy media’s corporate consolidation and slow adaptation to digital trends that have led to widespread layoffs and newsroom closures, especially in local markets. Even recent government interventions like the federal Online News Act haven’t reversed the financial and structural challenges legacy outlets face. I suspect Murray was finally a casualty of this.
(There’s a lot more to say, which I will say on this Substack in the coming days and weeks, about the current and future state of media and journalism in Saskatchewan.)
As I close, here is this: the guy isn’t dead! This isn’t an obituary to him or his writing. I texted Murray this morning and wished him all the best and thanked him for his work over the years. But I encouraged him to keep writing, to set up a Substack and get paid directly by people that want to read his stuff. I’ll be an early subscriber if he does that. The future of journalism and media is not at companies like Postmedia - it’s here on Substack.
So, to Murray: keep writing! There’s a lot of people out here, including me, that wonder what Mandryk Unchained looks like, with no editors or complaining shareholders holding you back!
Thanks for all the columns, Murray. Look forward to reading your stuff again soon!
Dale Richardson writes from and about Saskatchewan.