19 May Jim Nunn

Jim Nunn announced his retirement from the CBC tonight. It’s a big loss for the Nova Scotia News at Six, which has climbed steadily in the ratings since Jim retook the helm last year after a 12-year absence.

His last show will be the June 9 election special. It’s a great way for him to go out because, simply put, no one on earth does elections better. His command of Nova Scotia politics is without equal in journalism. I will be one of Jim’s color commentators that night, a role I used to share with Harry Flemming. We’ll have a ball. As Jim said to me the last time we did an election together, “It’s the most fun you can have with your clothes on.”

Jim is a stalwart and loyal friend, one of my closest. He has the wit to conceive the exact right question for skewering the pompous and powerful, and the guts to ask it without fear of personal consequences. This hasn’t always served him well with CBC brass, but it served Nova Scotians and Canadians damned well for three decades.