Radio Talk: Four Decades Covering the News in Atlantic Canada

Rick Howe

Nonfiction: Autobiography, The Maritimes, Newsmakers

$19.95

208 pages

6" x 9" Trade Paperback

ISBN 978-1-897426-19-7

Available in August 2010

Order this book from: Nimbus Publishing (or 1-800-Nimbus9)
or Chapters or Pottersfield Press mail order.

Now entering his fifth decade as a radio journalist in Atlantic Canada, Rick Howe has been an eyewitness to some of the region's biggest news stories. From the 1977 Saint John police lock-up fire to Pictou County's Westray Mine disaster, from the 13th Tribe motorcycle gang's hijacking of the Princess of Acadia ferry to the RCMP's investigation into a prominent Nova Scotia politician, Howe has literally been there and seen it. Radio Talk will take you inside the news, and share with you little-known details about many of the stories familiar to residents of Canada's East Coast.

As a reporter and a commentator, Howe has had unfettered access to the newsmakers. He has been up close and personal with the famous, such as Princess Diana on board the royal yacht Britannia, and the infamous, like John Edward Kenny, a man convicted in the deaths of twenty-one men. The author also provides an insider's view of those who report the news, how they cope with the pressures of the job and how decisions are made on what stories are covered. Journalists take their jobs quite seriously, but mistakes and bloopers are also part of life on live radio. In this tell-all book, Howe reveals some of the more hilarious moments in Atlantic radio history.

Over the past four decades, the media has undergone some significant changes, some of it for the better, some of it not. Howe pulls no punches in telling readers where things have been done right and where they have gone wrong. Many of the subjects and personalities in this book are very familiar to Atlantic Canadians. Radio Talk looks behind the headlines at details that will shock and surprise readers. It will provoke discussion and generate controversy. Above all, it will certainly entertain.



Rick Howe has been a reporter, a newscaster, a news director, a commentator and a talk-show host. For several years he also wrote a column for the Halifax Daily News, and he has made numerous appearances on CTV and CBC television as a political analyst. With family roots in New Brunswick, Howe has worked in radio in Campbellton, Newcastle, Saint John and over thirty years in Halifax. Currently living in Fall River, Nova Scotia, Howe is married to former ATV/ASN television journalist Yvonne Colbert.