Dangerously Close to Contempt.The Restless Life of Roger Bill. Journalism’s Unrepentant Agitator by Alex Bill
A book review by Ted Blades.
ST JOHN’S, NL – I’m told that Roger Bill tried to talk his son, Alex, out of writing this biography, saying there are far more interesting subjects out there. Luckily for the reader, Bill’s tumultuous life has taken place against the backdrop of some of the most significant events of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, both in Newfoundland and around the world. In his youth Bill was one of millions of young Americans drafted into the senseless slaughter of the Vietnam War, a fate he avoided by escaping to Canada. Years later, the author notes with irony, Bill’s peripatetic career in journalism puts him on the ground in war zones around the world. The chapters on his time at the CBC, which overlapped mine, are entertaining and informative but, as a townie, the highlight of this book is its vivid take on Bill’s central role in the fight to save downtown St. John’s from the raze-it-and-pave-it threat of the early 1970s.
Bill was born in Muncie Indiana, In 1944. His upbringing in a fairly conservative family, success as an athlete in school, and his rebellious teenage years are told with crisp efficiency, taking us quickly to the first stand-out section of the book. Here Bill is in his early 20s as the death toll of American soldiers killed in Vietnam climbs to more than a thousand a month. College deferments have spared him so far, but now he comes to a crossroads. Show up for his induction or leave everything he knows behind and slip across the border into Canada. His son (the editor of allNewfoundlandLabrador) lays out the context of this decision in compelling fashion.
After trying his hand at various jobs and locales in western Canada, Bill heads east, first to Halifax and, finally, Newfoundland where Sociology studies at Memorial University, an early interest in statistics, and his contempt of authority prepare him for his next big fight, joining the ranks of those opposed to plans to redevelop downtown St. John’s, including something called Plan 91, which would result in the destruction of historic homes and businesses along Queens and Military Roads to make way for a four lane highway cutting the city in two. Imagine the stretch of New Gower Street in front of City Hall continuing up the hill as far as the Hotel Newfoundland and you’ll get the idea.
The battle to stop this madness, led by, amongst others, Shannie Duff, Shane O’Dea, and Bill (as executive director of a loose coalition called the People’s Planning Program) makes a great bit of history, as does the account of Bill’s nose-to-nose confrontation with developer, and prominent scion of old townie money, Andrew Crosbie over his plans to build Atlantic place (Here the author quotes actor Mary Walsh, who calls it “a big brown, brick bowel movement on Water Street”). All this happened before my time in St. John;s so I learned a lot from this section, including just how tight and vindictive the old guard was in those days (Bill later loses a job opportunity at Memorial University because one of Crosbie’s lieutenants blackballed him).
Entertaining too is the section on CODCO’s early political role, especially their creation of an anti-development play entitled “What do you want to see the harbour for anyway?” and the early days of The Mummers Troupe and its documentary theatre concept “essentially echoing the sentiment of the audience or community back to them through performance”, a technique still being used today in Jonny Harris’s CBC Television show “Still Standing”. New to me was Bill’s role in the tangy history of who first came up with the idea of turning the Longshoremen’s Protective Union Hall on Victoria Street into the theatre we know today.
Eventually, his years of advocacy give way to journalism and Bill’s inclination to stir things up manifests itself in making big changes at CBC Radio, both locally and nationally. Successes, challenges and pushback come in equal measure and confrontations ensue (When I first met Bill in the mid 1980s, he was holed up in a tiny, windowless office hidden behind the record library sequestered there by local management keen on keeping him as far away as possible from the rest of the staff, or so the legend went). He would eventually be brought back into the fold for a second term as executive producer for CBC Radio Current Affairs in N&L. Those were exciting times for those on his A team (Confession; I was a member and recall many opportunities to make exciting and often innovative programming), but less so for those not amongst the chosen, who rightly felt undervalued and ignored.
Before that though, Bill spent a decade as part of the team that made Sunday Morning, CBC Radio’s flagship national public affairs show based in Toronto. It specialized in longer form documentaries (“A week in the life of the world” was its slogan and the mantra for Bill and his fellow doc makers). Here the stakes of Bill’s desire to buck authority are upped substantially, as he negotiates his way in and out of war zones while trying to not get killed or arrested. We follow along as he reports from the front lines in hot spots such as Sarajevo, Afghanistan, Tiananmen Square, Haiti and the first Gulf war.
From there the book moves on to Bill’s life after the CBC, where he spends the next 20 years hopping from one journalism project to the next, in print, video and online, including a provocative turn at the helm of the independent newspaper the Current. The high, or low, point there (depending on your perspective) would have to be the creation of, and subsequent fallout from, the Current’s infamous cover of St. John’s mayor Andy Wells wearing a ball gag in his mouth. It’s from his father’s time at the Current that the younger Bill draws the title of this book.
Woven throughout this account of his professional pursuits, is the story of Bill’s family life, his four children and three wives, especially the last, fellow journalist Deane Fleet, who was for years a well-known and respected investigative reporter with CBC Television’s Here and Now. Alex Bill makes sure to highlight both his parents roles the news coverage of the sexual abuse scandals involving Irish Christian Brothers and Roman Catholic priests.
Throughout the book’s 270 pages, the author shares his frustration with how the passing of other eyewitnesses and vagaries of memory hamper his ability to get at the facts (as her late majesty, the Queen, famously put it, “recollections may vary”) but he has risen to the challenge and created a compelling portrait of a complex, driven man who’s still trying – in his 80s – to kick against the pricks. If sometimes it seems as if the son is pulling his punches, sketching his father’s rough edges without digging too deeply into them, that’s to be expected when your subject is sitting there, taking everything in.
By Ted Blades.
© 2025
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Dangerously Close to Contempt is published by After Books in St John’s Newfoundland.
Please support your local independent book stores.
ISBN 978-1-73835–366-8
You can also find it on Amazon.ca
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