‘JOURNALISM WAS HIS LIFE’
CFCF’s Ralph Noseworthy
Ralph Noseworthy, a journalist who reported on the National Assembly for CFCF-12’s Pulse News for 18 years, has died. He was 81.
In 1987, he obtained, and broadcast, the details of the provincial budget a week before the government planned to introduce it — a scoop that led then-premier Robert Bourassa’s finance minister, Gérard D. Levesque, to introduce the budget the same evening as the broadcast. The scoop also resulted in a police investigation.
It was not the first time Noseworthy drew the ire of one of Bourassa’s cabinet ministers. In the mid-1970s, when Noseworthy was investigating then-justice minister Jérôme Choquette, on a freelance assignment for The Montreal Gazette, Choquette allegedly planned a campaign to discredit Noseworthy involving an undercover Sûreté du Québec officer. That plan was not enacted, but police did put Noseworthy under electronic surveillance.
“Ralph was pretty much the same person in private life as he was as a journalist, because he cared a lot for people,” Nancy Ford, his partner for 28 years, told the Gazette. “Journalism was his life; he just adored it. He liked to go out and get the news; he wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
Noseworthy was born in Sydney, N.S., where he worked as a professional diver and participated in an excavation of the nearby Fortress of Louisbourg. He later moved to Quebec City, where he became a journalist.
“Learning French was the first challenge, the second one was learning to type,” Ford said.
In Quebec City, he worked for the Chronicle-Telegraph newspaper, the UPI news service and radio stations CJMF and CFOX before joining CFCF.
Later in his career, he was reassigned to Montreal, where he hosted Action 12, a consumer affairs show. While Noseworthy was not happy with the move, he had a passion for chasing down crooked business owners. When businesses that were accused of ripping off customers got a call from Noseworthy, they answered.
“He was great at that,” said Stéphane Giroux, a journalist at CTV Montreal who worked with Noseworthy at the time.
“You had to talk, otherwise he would chase you down the street with his camera,” Giroux said.
“When he was determined to find a crooked businessman who ripped off a viewer, he was merciless.”
“You couldn’t tell Ralph how to behave, and it got him in trouble a few times with management at CFCF-12, it got him in trouble with the press gallery in Quebec City. He made his own rules. But he always did it for the right reason,” Giroux said. “He told me … that camera is your eyes, it’s the public’s eyes.”
Noseworthy died of a heart attack in his sleep on Dec. 26. In addition to Ford, he is survived by his daughter Cathy, and grandchildren Paulina and Zachary.
Cathy Noseworthy said her father taught her never to take no for an answer and to chase after her dreams.
“Once I told him he was stubborn and he said, ‘No, I’m not stubborn, I’m persistent,’ ” she said.