Press Release For New Book: My Life As A Reporter
April 2026
It’s a mystery to most people how a news story gets to the pages of a newspaper.
How it happens is explained in a new book by Cal Millar – My Life as a Reporter – covering four decades from the 1960s.
The 531 page book details how various stories were covered and the assistance provided to get them into print.
It explains how witnesses and contacts are the key to getting information and reporters cannot succeed without them.
The book gives insight into how reporters covered a July 1987 disaster when a series of tornados swept across Edmonton, Alberta, killing 34 people, including five children. It also details coverage of United Airlines flight 93 in Pennsylvania during the 9-11 terrorist attack on the United States; the horrific Dupont Plaza Hotel fire in Puerto Rico where 96 people perished and the 1984 sinking of a sailing schooner in the Atlantic Ocean, off Bermuda, where 18 individuals lost their lives.
There are also stories of local tragedies and international disasters, as well as human interest articles which reporters write about on a regular basis.
The book explains that it’s vital for reporters to compose stories accurately without bias and void of embellishment, exaggeration or sensationalism.
My Life as a Reporter is a must read for anyone planning to work in media or those generally interested in the news business.
The book explains that reporters, when confronted with gruesome or nightmarish incidents, must concentrate on the job they have to do and not be distracted by horror that’s occurred. This was evident when the author arrived with a team of reporters at the scene of a school bus accident near Windsor, Ontario – four days before Christmas in 1966.
A dump truck had flipped over after skidding on an icy road and spilled its 25 ton cargo of sand into the bus, burying 20 youngsters on their way home at the start of the Christmas holiday break.
Eight public school children were killed and 16 other students were saved by rescue workers who dug through the sand with their hands to get them out. Several children were seriously injured and required lengthy hospital care.
The book chronicles a variety of stories from the time the author worked as an intern at radio station CKOC in Hamilton, to his first newspaper job at the Peterborough Examiner and a couple of years at the Windsor Star before joining the staff at the Toronto Telegram, which at the time was Canada’s largest newspaper with bureaus in a number of world capitals, including Washington, London, Paris and Moscow.
When the Telegram folded in 1970, Millar was invited as one of 62 people to join the staff of a newly created newspaper, the Toronto Sun, and in 1983 was hired as a reporter at the Toronto Star to cover breaking news wherever it occurred.
In the book he tells of the need to meet deadlines and find stories that will pique the interest of readers. “During my working career,” he writes in the book, “it was important for me to treat people fairly and to provide a comfort level that I would be welcomed back to their homes at any time in the future.”
Available at Amazon.
Contact – Cal Millar