Rex Murphy is one of Newfoundland's best known exports

It's no surprise when Rex Murphy stops at Monty's Place, a restaurant just outside St. John's. The well known CBC commentator and Globe and Mail columnist is known to stop at the traditional restaurant for a meal of fish, or pea soup with dumplings, at least once a year.

The waitresses there say he's no different than any other customer, maybe just a little more courteous and kind. He's a good one to "carry on" with -- something they love to do -- and will chat with them about his plans for this time he's 'home'. Despite his success in a bigger place, he still makes time to come home, eat the food he's always eaten, do the things he's always done, and sometimes even mention Newfoundland in a column or broadcast every now and then.

Just a half an hour drive from Monty's Place is Carbonear -- a historic fishing, and now commercial, community. This is where Rex was born and lived until he was 10 years old. The family moved when his father got a job working as a cook for the Americans at the Argentia Military Base. They settled in Freshwater, a small community nearby.

Rex was a bright student from the beginning. He skipped two grades in primary school, and finished high school at 15. By 19 he had finished a degree in English at Memorial University, and in 1968, when he was 21, he left to study law at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. After his studies there, he returned to Memorial and enrolled in a master's program in English, a program he didn't finish.

Rex loved politics from an early age. Born in March of 1947, he grew up in the time of the province's first (and perhaps best known) premier, Joey Smallwood. In university, he got a closer look at the sport. "I used to go to the House of Assembly the way some people would go to a movie. You knew Smallwood was up there and there was a big issue on that day, so you'd wander up after class and sit in while question period was starting."

Politics eventually worked its way into Rex's career. He left journalism to pursue political goals after a few years of working for CBC in Toronto, and with Here and Now at CBC St. John's. In 1981 he won a federal nomination for the Conservatives in St. John's. The election was delayed for a year and Rex went to work for provincial Tory leader Frank Moores. In 1985 he ran again at the provincial level, this time for the Liberal seat in Placentia. Bob Wakeham, a friend and past co-worker of Rex, says he's never known Rex to stick with one party, or to make clear exactly which side he was on. He says, "I don't think it had anything to do with philosophy, ideologically I think he's all over the map and that's, in the end, what makes him such a good commentator." In the end Rex was not successful in the 1985 election and lost by 70 votes. Even though his political career didn't work out, he says the experience was helpful when he later returned to journalism.

"Once I got inside and I was on the other side of the mirror, there were things that you didn't know -- the passions that were at play, how the politicians view the press, how the politician's image of the press in certain curious ways was a reverse of the press's version of the politicians. I have a kind of a formula, there's about 20 per cent of the experience in both worlds that the other side just doesn't even know."

A national voice, with a Newfoundland accent

Rex returned to journalism in 1987. Again it was with Here and Now at CBC in St. John's, with some work for The Journal on the side. In 1994 he made a permanent move to the mainland when he joined Cross Country Checkup. Wakeham was executive producer of Here and Now at the time, and worked with Rex until he left for Toronto.

"I guess they had heard about how well he was doing in Newfoundland and how much response we were getting to his commentaries, which were brilliant, obviously, and funny, and you know, he's a master with words. I've never read or seen anybody who has a better grasp of the language than Rex. Combine that with a great sense of what Newfoundland is all about -- well that's a pretty wicked combination for a commentator."

Rex's sense of Newfoundland gave him an advantage while he worked in his home province. "The connection that you have with the, what I'll call on the broad sense, your home audience, gives you greater opportunities in the way you tell the story, and in how much fun you can have because the Newfoundlander knows the other Newfoundlander's sense of humour."

When he moved to the mainland, this closeness and sense of humour was lost. He says he had an adjustment to make in going from a provincial to a national level, mainly because of the difference in temperament from province to province. "I know there's a certain style of humour, for example, in Newfoundland. I think I was a lot more punchy and a bit wilder on Here and Now than I'd ever be on The National... humour across the country has little changes and differences."

There was also an adjustment to make in figuring out what to write. "If you're broadcasting on a national network, or writing a column for the national audience, you want the column or broadcast to mean as much to a small town person in B.C., as to someone in Regina, as to someone in Halifax, or to someone in Petty Harbour, or where ever the hell it is. You've gotta find the common themes, the common threads, and find some way of writing either in a newspaper or broadcasting on the radio or on television, something that gets across to everybody with the same weight or the same punch or the same interest. That's about the biggest thing for me, just finding that kind of area."

Now that Rex is known nationally for his work, it seems he's found that area while keeping his sense of being a Newfoundlander at the same time. Wakeham says, "When I worked with him he'd make observations about what Newfoundland was all about, a reflection of his roots. He's never lost that, you'll hear him on Cross Country Checkup, he'll make reference to his place back home, and in the Globe he'll make reference to Newfoundland very often. He's your classic Newfoundlander that way, he's left here but he's never left here."

Style and substance

When writing, Rex says he tries to get the reader's attention by "buying his admission into the theatre". He considers this self-consciousness about the audience to be a reflection of being from Newfoundland.

"I try to say things and write things in a way that gives two things at once. I want to say something about something, but I also, if I can, like to think of some poor person reading the damn column and saying 'God I've got to plow through 800 words here.'... I try to put it in a fashion that provides at least a certain veneer of amusement as well as attempting to say something or give an analysis or to make a strong point."

Rex's ability to "give two things at once" in his writing is made more efficient and effective by his precise and vast vocabulary. This is where one of the most common complaints about Rex's writing and broadcasting comes out. Wakeham says, "some people -- not a lot of people -- dismiss him as a walking talking thesaurus because he uses a fair amount of words that some people might have to look up in the dictionary. But, I remember one time someone phoned me at Here and Now, and this guy said, 'I'm not quite sure about each and every word Rex says, I don't understand the meaning of each and every word, but I know what he's saying to us'."

Margaret Wente, a regular columnist for the Globe and Mail, says she doesn't know Rex personally but admires his writing for the way he makes people think. "A couple of weeks ago he wrote about comedy and comics who were lampooning the Bush administration and he made the point that they think that's satire, social satire, but it's not satire at all. It's just confirming the prejudices and beliefs of their audiences which is easiest of all to do. Real satire challenges the prejudices and beliefs of the audience... it's not dangerous at all it's completely safe. So that was the point he was making, and I thought it was a really excellent one. And of course he made it in his usual artful manner, and I wound up saying to myself, "Darn, I wish I had thought of that, I wish I had thought of writing that first." But he beat me to it, so that's very often the way I feel."

Wente's praise is even more remarkable because she was once on the receiving end of Rex's fire. Her column, "Oh Danny Boy, pipe down", painted Newfoundlanders as surly and lazy people living in a "scenic welfare ghetto." Newfoundlanders were, of course, outraged. Wente says everyone in Newfoundland who owned a computer sent her an email about that column. Rex wrote a column in response to Wente titled "I like Margaret Wente, I really do". Even though he did write a response, he says "I think that on the Wente piece that we all overreacted. I did what I did only because it became such a big story that you had to reply to it. My ideal situation would be that, anyone, if they say something about Newfoundland, then so what? I'm perfectly confident in Newfoundland and Newfoundlanders."

While it is fairly easy to get a picture of who Rex is in his career, it is very difficult to see who he is in his personal life. He has a history of deftly dodging questions that get too close. Wakeham worked with Rex for nearly 10 years and says that he "got to know Rex as well as you can get to know him. He'd probably tell you himself that he's a bit of a loner... he just never lets you get really extremely close to him, he keeps a little bit of a distance." Little is known publicly about his brief marriage to fellow CBC reporter Jennifer Davis, better know as Jennifer Guy. The short relationship did produce a daughter, but both parents are reported to remain quiet on their child and their past together. A little more is known about Rex's struggle with alcohol, a problem he has since solved. In a previous profile for MacLean's, written by Marci MacDonald, Rex says "there was nothing apocalyptic... to this day, I've never understood the compulsion, but for me it was a consuming vice--the worst and stupidest thing I've ever done."

As a person, friend and colleague Linda Whalen says Rex is "the kindest and most courteous of people." Whalen went to Memorial at the same time Rex did, worked with him at CBC and at the Newfoundland Quarterly. One of her favorite memories of him was the time they went to visit their old mentor and supervisor George Story.

"George was very ill, it was not the last time I saw him, but I think it was the last time Rex saw him. We went over to visit and I was privileged to just be there to watch as George and Rex engaged in scholarly discourse. And just the warmth and the kindness he showed at the time, in that particular context I think I'll always see the two of them talking, pacing, going to the bookshelf and bringing out books, looking up their favorite passages."

Until asked about George Story, Rex's tone and attitude stay the same throughout the interview: his words come easily and he's very matter of fact. When remembering Story, he seems to put even more care into choosing his words. Story's life work includes the Dictionary of Newfoundland English. He was also the first chairman of the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council. The poster put out by this council bears a simple passage from his writings. It reads: "It is our creative ability that ensures our survival as a recognizable people and culture, and enables us also to contribute to the enrichment of the nation of which we form a distinctive part."

When asked about this quote, Rex says, "That is exactly true -- it will be our creative [ability], it won't be our resentments and our occasionally getting mulish or too sensitive. No, go out and take charge and do it on your own terms and use your mind, and use your education and use your imagination, and that'll do it. And if it doesn't do it, you won't feel bad because you've done your best with everything you have."